


Crash Standing

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Series: the family you choose [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Culture Shock, Dirk and Bro are separate people, Discussion of rape and pedophilia, Family, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Unconventional Families, bro is not abusive, human again!Davesprite, striders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:16:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 128,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been eight days since the end of Sburb and Davesprite is not coping especially well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first three fics dealt with culture clashes, and Dad Egbert adopting Karkat and Gamzee. This one is Davesprite-centric.
> 
> Post-Sburb on Earth, guardians are alive again, dead trolls are still dead, Dirk and Roxy get to live in the same time period as the other humans, all trolls who survived are being hosted by humans. 
> 
> I have no idea how well it'll be readable by people who haven't read the previous oneshots, but if it helps a lot of what you guys might get baffled about, Davesprite will get baffled about too.

"Ah, Byrd!" she says. "Just the person I needed."

You dress the same, you look the same, you walk (almost) the same. Her back is still turned to you. Doesn't make a lick of difference. You're getting used to it.

"Yo, Pyrope."

Once upon a time she got your best bro killed and your Jade died as a result and you had to leave your Rose behind to wait alone in a doomed timeline for a horrible end to catch up. It's been weird sharing an apartment with her post-Game, but then again everything's been weird.

You stick your hand in your pocket, slouch your way to the table. She's at Bro's computer. He said next time there was slobber on his screen he'd teach her to fly from the roof, though, so you could read the screen, if you felt like it. She has to sniff it, and you know by now from hearing her complain how much detail is lost.

"Dude, if you need someone to read to you, you've got a manbitch for that."

She laughs, all bear-trap teeth bared. You can't even imagine how that insufferable prick you have for a twin-clone can even think fondly of maybe perhaps one day sticking his dick into that.

"Alas he is busy," she replies with a weirdly quirked smirk as she stares somewhere off your shoulder. "That's alright! I didn't want to ask him, I wanted to ask you."

For a second you kind of want to ask what he's busy with, but you can guess. The apartment is oddly empty, Dirk isn't tinkering with his pile of robot shit, Bro hasn't lobbed a single plush ass at your face. They're on the roof.

They didn't bother to ask you this time around. Good, you were getting tired of saying no, haha no, hell no, how the fuck do you see that working out exactly no.

You're not sure what Terezi could want to ask a Dave that her Dave couldn't answer. You decide she's just lying to be polite or something. You shrug, hand in your back pocket, shoulders loose. (Your back is a little cramped. You tell yourself it's from sitting at a desk too long.)  "Okay, fire away."

"What does statutory mean?"

"... Boom, headshot." You blink. "The fuck, Pyrope. You watching courtroom dramas again?"

She's still grinning. "Is there anything better to watch? I don't believe there would be." Possibly her boyfriend being infatuated means he can't see it when she lies, how her dead eyes get even deader somehow.

She props both hands on her cane, turns to face you, feet set solid on the floor. She waits, head tilted so her horns point at three and eleven.

"Uh. Okay, whatev'. I'm not sure what it means on its own actually. Statutory _rape_ is when an adult and a... not an adult, but, argh. Wait a second." You don't even know how old the term wiggler applies; child covers a lot of ground and you don't think you've heard of a troll word that separated teens and preteens. Not that you're an expert in weird alien shit. "Look, once you have hair sprouting down there..."

"Trolls don't have hair anywhere but on their head, actually! And down their spine a bit, when they get into middle age, but only to the fourth vertebra."

"This is fascinating. I am fascinated. Please, Professor Pyrope, educate me more." Sigh. "Like, older than wiggler, old enough to be getting interested in sex, but not officially an adult yet."

"Hm. Between five and ten, then?"

You translate the sweeps. Urgh. Trolls are horrible. "You guys start young."

"An empty pail means a chest full of culling fork, so..." She shrugs. So trolls move fast, okay, got it, whatever. "So. Statutory _rape_ is?"

"Why are you not asking Dave again."

"But I am asking Dave!" She grins.

Your teeth clench. "... We've talked about this, Pyrope."

Her smile has the gall to soften.

No stupid nicknames from you. (Boyfriend territory. You are not trespassing.) No Mr. Orange Creamsicle from her, you're not anymore. (No Dave either.) You've had the talk. She keeps nudging.

"Name's Byrd." Not Dave. Never Dave again. Davesprite would get you side-eyed by government officials who had to sign your "replacement" paperwork and besides it's like going around stamped Cheap Copy, fuck that noise sideways in the ear, you are _done_ with it.

Byrd was too horribly perfect to pass up, case closed.

"Alright, Byrd, sorry." Still that annoyingly soft smile. You prefer the bear trap grins. "Now, my question?"

"Ffff. Okay, fine." You take the most droning voice you know how. "Pedophilia is when an adult has sex with a child too young to have sex, like, _biologically_ too young, this is one of the worst crimes a human can commit lawl we're so weird not making baby paste to rub on our nether regions I know. Next rung on the echelon of _bad no get your hands off there_ is statutory rape, when some kid old enough to jizz or hemorrhage from the vagina or whatever but not _adult_ -old gets sexed up by an actual adult. It's not as bad but still plenty bad." You frown, hesitating. "Well, actually... No is still no, the _statutory_ part of rape I think is when they say yes, 'cause they're too young to know what the fuck they're saying or like, they don't really know what they're getting into, and the adult was taking advantage and is a dirty old fuckhead. Was that satisfying, Professor."

You didn't even bullshit her. You could have, it might have been funny, and she expects it anyway. Watching the way she tenses, though, subtle as it is, raises alarms of the _that broad has two swords on her at all times and knows how to skewer a bitch_ variety.

The reason you notice, though, is she's been tense that way ever since Dave invited her home after the Game spat everyone out. Subtle -- you know she's intense even usually so you thought you were imagining it, or possibly it was the stress of being stranded in a city of aliens -- you imaging that _might_ possibly make a body just a little bit _twitchy_ \-- but now that you think about it, this morning she was just plain _relaxed_. Her cane hung from the counter a full three steps away from her, even.

You thought Dave had finally gotten laid; apparently that wasn't it.

"Hmm. Taking advantage of a weakness is punishable by law." Her grin looks a little bemused now, but not in a displeased way. You scratch at your chin, go to cross your arms, oh right haha. Welp. Hand in your back pocket again. (It's been eight days, hell, when are you going to stop that shit.)

"When it's something that hugely unfair, yeah."

"I guess if our adults all routinely had access to our wigglers we would have had to set up serious punishment as well..."

... _Trolls_.

"Where'd you even hear the word?" you ask, and wonder if she's going to trot out the soap opera excuse.

She shrugs, flicks her hand as if to swat away a mosquito. "Bro was on the phone."

"Stop eavesdropping on him, for fuck's sake, Terezi." You know there's no way he hasn't noticed the way she slinks and stalks him around the apartment, he's the master at it and she's nowhere near his level, but still it's gotta wear on his nerves a bit.

She makes a gasping, shocked face. "But without such a challenge to overcome, how will I ever get to the top of my echeladder?"

Fff. "Also stop bullshitting me, I'd appreciate that, yeah, thanks. Or at least stop doing it so badly, shit's just plain disrespectful. Who was he calling?"

She's already turning back to the computer, clicking windows closed casually, just letting your tone slide right off her back. "Oh, I'm not sure, John's lusus maybe. Does it matter?"

Why in the world would your Bro talk about that stuff with John's square of a dad. Possibly just a rambling aside or a metaphor gone bad...

She jumps off her seat, almost knocks into you. "I'm going to the roof. Feel free to come along!"

Yeah, right. And get roped into a Strider Spar. You'll do awesome with your stump. "Naw, I'm good. There's pollution and shit outside, my elegant but non-sickly pallor would never survive."

You miss being a sprite. You could float; when it was your wing you lacked, it didn't unbalance you to hell and back.

Now you don't have wings anymore, or a tail with seriously useful reach, or the knowledge of a thousand cheat codes to game life with, you have feet you forget to watch and you're eight pounds lighter on the right side.

She punches you in the shoulder as she passes you. It's friendly. It rocks you anyway.

You sit down at the computer. Could turn it back on, check on SBaHJ; apparently it's your thing for good now. You were poking at it yesterday and Dave just looked over your shoulder and made _hmm yeah_ noises and didn't suggest jack shit. Maybe because whatever he'd thought of you were thinking of, too, it used to be like that, when you were still more or less two iterations of the exact same person. Maybe he just thinks it's boring old shit by now.

Maybe you're boring yourself with your own whiny emo crap.

Footsteps in the corridor. Several pairs. Huh, you didn't sit on your ass and brood so vampiringly you didn't see the eons fly by, did you? But no, the computer is still warm.

Terezi pops back through the door, turned sideway to talk. Bro (huh) follows her in, followed by Mini Bro and Other You, artfully disheveled and full of manly bruises and shit. Dave gives you a small, awkward nod and flashsteps to the fridge to forage for not-too-old takeout leftovers amidst the swords. Dirk stares at you longer, eyes gone all narrow and thoughtful behind his shades, like he can read your mind but what's written is too much bullshit to translate easily.

"Yo guys." You give a minimalist wave of your fingers. Dirk takes it as an invitation to come up to you. Shit. You are not good company at the moment. "Battle Royale for the first turn at the shower end in a draw or what?" You arch a pointed eyebrow.

Dirk is pretty naturally badass, as befits a Strider (especially one who's also Younger Bro,) but really apart from Game constructs and stuff, he's only ever fought robot versions of himself, and Bro has longer reach and about three centuries of experience on him. It surprises no one but Dirk that he keeps losing.

He grunts, crosses his arms. "The old man had something to tell us, apparently."

Right, Bro hasn't disappeared in the bathroom yet. Huh. And Terezi is... well, not in his space yet, _but_. This is weird as fuck.

"So you noticed too, huh."

"Uh, noticed what, bro," you sidestep, like a rad ninja master of deception and okay you don't feel surprised when he gives you a _look_ over the rim of his shades. "Mnh. Maybe she just has a weakness for older dudes, finely aged."

"Older dudes who are exclusively into non-alien cock, uh huh."

"Dude, smuppets are so not of Earth. I don't know where the fuck they're from, probably Hell, but _not_ Earth."

"Wow, what a fascinating conversation I cannot wait to get away from," says Dave as he stops beside you, carton of old Chinese noodles in hand. "Almost putting me off my food there, you tremendous asshole, see if I share."

"I spit in it earlier today," you reply, not your best but you're tired, okay.

"Oh noes foreign germs -- oh wait." He slurps down a mouthful, parks his ass on the desk.

You grumble. You should have snatched the leftovers sooner. "Yeah well, enjoy your bird flu."

Dirk shakes his head like you're both exhausting him, but his poker face has nothing on Bro's and neither you nor Dave miss the tiny little quirk of his mouth that might almost pass for the beginning of a smile.

This is starting to look a bit too much like a Brotherly Bonding Moment. You don't feel like having a moment, uppercased or otherwise. "Hey, Bro! Stop hitting on your sister in law one minute, yeah? I got things to visit, people to do, all that pimpnasty shit--"

"Your tight little fist doesn't actually count as a girlfriend," Bro drawls back, but he ambles in your general direction, sits on the back of the couch to face the three of you. Terezi follows, her smile bright and expectant and alligatoresque.

He stares at the three of you in turn. You stare back, you're pretty sure they do too. They're both sitting on the desk; with you in the desk chair you feel like you should move up a rung to complete the lineup.

Dave breaks first. "Whaaat? Come on, Bro, what is it? Spit it out!"

Bro shrugs, hooks a casual thumb in his pocket.

"We're moving out of Houston."

A beat of silence, two.

"What?! Why?" Dave protests, once again first, and so you slam your jaw shut because you will not do the twin stereo thing, that shit is twee and disgusting to the max, and also you can fucking guess why.

There's two bedrooms and five people in this apartment and Dave is too bashful to get the fuck out of your bedroom and move into the crawlspace with his space girlfriend and Dirk can't sleep when someone's breathing nearby so he's been camping on the piece of shit couch and ruining his back and none of you will set foot in the pit of terror and smuppets that is Bro's room for love, money or awesome PnB sandwiches. Also there's only one shower with a tiny hot water tank and two assholes who like to camp under there for eons, and you've all been going around in circles like a bunch of lions in a poodle-sized cage and it's a matter of time until blood flies on the shitty, well-stained carpet.

But shit, you've been in that apartment ever since you rode down on a fucking meteor like the badassest baby in the universe. It might be a shitty place but it's your place.

You scowl. Dirk gives a slow nod, not like Bro laid down the law but like he made a suggestion and Dirk has decided after due reflection that he may as well endorse it.

"Well, now," Bro drawls, "there is a way we can keep the place, but first you guys have to decide which is the lucky asshole who gets to not be punted out of the window."

Dave settles back down grumpily, crosses his arms. "... Damn it."

"Where are we going, then?" Dirk asks. "I doubt you'd bring this up unless you had something else lined up..."

"And of course you couldn't be assed to discuss it with us first," you mutter. Dave snorts his disgruntled agreement.

"Hellmurder Island."

"Hell yes!" Dave is suddenly on his feet, grinning at Terezi, who grins back like if she grins two inches farther the top of her head is going to fall off. They high five.

Your feelings are a little more conflicted, because while you miss Jade a lot as a friend... Well, she's still your ex. Those last months on the meteor were awkward. You hope being island neighbors won't mean you get to revisit that.

"So are the suburban tooth cousins and their beefcake centerfold dads."

You and Dave go from punching the air and going YESS to flinching and going UGH. Dirk gives another slow, slow nod, then walks up to Bro, cups his face in his hands, leans in, and gives him a loud, wet, grandmotherly kiss right on the forehead.

" _Awesome_."

Bro wipes his forehead. "Okay, dude, let's never do that again. I saw my life flash before my eyes, I swear to fuck."

Yeah, uh, you too. The worst thing is Bro and Dirk are totally the type of competitive bastards to actually lay a kiss on their other self just to be assholes. You and Dave are in perfect agreement that this is the grossest thing you have ever witnessed. No twincest for you! That's the happiest tragedy of your life.

Terezi is cackling to herself, only half because of her hosts behaving like morons. You guess you'd be happy too if you were moving from a sardine can to a tropical island with other gray dudes, too bad the repopulation option isn't available because in a few years you'd have the perfect set up for a pretty badass horror movie.

You pity the poor lost asshole who'd accidentally stumble onto Jade's island even if it hadn't been repopulated by white monsters already (she's been spamming pictures _everywhere_ ) but if you added trolls on top, whoa. How 'bout a nice, relaxing, safe vacation to Jurassic Park instead, gents.

"Okay, so, the plan." Bro looks you all over; he finds everyone listening intently, of course, he's just dragging it out on purpose. "Jade's taking a plane to the Egberts' today so she can drive down with them to us, pop their guests out of the cab in case of cops and shit. Gonna take them a couple days. Probably crashes for a night when she gets here with her devil beast, then she goes and gets the Lalondes plus guest --" Dave makes a tiny undignified squeaking noise. "--And meanwhile we play refined hosts. You guys'll never guess what that means."

"Slumber party!" Terezi exclaims.

"World's Shittiest Movie Marathon," you add. Dave says "Makeovers," in as reverent a voice as he can fake.

Dirk purses his lips in thought. "We're going to be packed tighter than a twink's asshole at a leather daddy convention?"

"... I was going to say spring cleaning but yes, that too."

Bro surveys his troops once again; you briefly wonder how he's handling it, this suddenly having three little bros to deal with when he used to have only the one. You guess in terms of novelty Dave and you count as maybe one and a half, really.

"Well I ain't saying we're letting this apartment go yet. Striders are city animals, no idea how we'll handle the wilderness."

Dirk makes a disparaging snort under his breath.

"But at worst we'll have a vacation house Pyrope here can crash at, and rack up a fortune in plane tickets. At best ... eh. Got time to see shit coming."

Bro pushes himself up, stares at the three of you again, glances at Terezi. "Okay, taking a shower. You guys can figure out task division shit on your own. Have fun."

He leaves. You exchange long reluctant looks. This is going to end in serious bickering, you can tell. The apartment is a hideous mess. Four bachelors live in it, of course it is, and Terezi doesn't care about the stains, she probably thinks of them as enriching splashes of mystery smells in the background or has long since tuned it all out.

Dirk sighs, raises his hand. "I propose we put Terezi in charge of task division. I believe we can trust you not to take bribes of a prurient nature to switch assignments around, Neophyte?"

Dave goes "Hey, they're not bribes, they're presents. Just marking my strings-free admiration there."

Terezi makes a pleased little trill that has your bird memories perking up in disturbing interest. "I shall be delighted to supervise. My judgment will be impartial as true Justice itself!"

"How much did it hurt you not to take over?" you ask Dirk idly as Dave and Terezi dick around, but really you're pretty okay with the idea. Terezi of all people is not going to give you all the pity tasks because boohoo crippled now.

"Immeasurably. My soul is still fucking weeping, dude."

You all settle at the table and start throwing ideas around. You might come to regret wanting to do your share once your natural laziness comes roaring back, but if someone even looked as if they were considering giving you busy work, you might claw their faces off. Caw, caw, motherfucker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title's from Dessa's The Crow ([link to youtube.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmeF4K-MelU))
> 
> That old crow came back today  
> Sitting in my window like a prophet  
> Out on the fire escape, to say  
> Anger is just love, left out, gone to vinegar  
> You wake up a stranger to yourself then you  
> Learn to live with her  
> Sit in her clothing ‘til you fill out her figure  
> You know life’s no bella telanovela  
> The tightrope bows with your weight in the center  
> The slide show don’t put all the pictures together  
> You try to do it right though  
> Right though, until you let the kite go  
> Death and romance, the riddles of our lifetimes  
> Tryna get a slow dance, middle of a knife fight  
> You get up and you, you give blood  
> Even on a good night even on a good night out  
> You send signal, you listen for an echo  
> At the first splinters you run to tell Geppetto  
> And in the worst winters the whole thing feels untenable  
> Crow took me by the shoulder  
> And he told me honey, don’t let go
> 
> Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall  
> Go to the edge sometime  
> And prove your body wrong  
> You land badly, but you crash standing  
> You land badly, but you crash
> 
> He took me to the workshop  
> Showed me where the built the bodies  
> A blacksmith, a mason, a carpenter  
> And in the darkroom, where the whole assembly started  
> All the clothesline where the hearts hung to harden  
> You come as fragile, soft machines  
> And you’re bound to fast, you’re bound to grieve  
> But you’re built to balance on two feet  
> So why you living this last year from your knees
> 
> Oh please put me down again
> 
> I know you lost a bet  
> G’head and catch your breath  
> But when the worst relents  
> You learn to live on less  
> You duck some, you take some square  
> Your luck runs out, you’re there in midair  
> And when the big one comes  
> You’ll know by the snare roll  
> You can be too careful  
> Ignore all the scarecrows  
> Time flys like the crow does  
> No regard for the grid  
> I can’t ask you to show love  
> But would it kill you if you did
> 
> Nobody fears the height, you all just fear the fall  
> Go to the edge sometime  
> And prove your body wrong  
> You land badly, but you crash standing  
> You land badly, but you crash


	2. 2 - Day Nine

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

EB: hey, pigeon face. :D   
TG: hey miss beaver  
EB: how's the life of cleaning lady treating you, buddy?  
TG: fuck you very much my feather duster is the best in three states i will fight you  
EB: pfffff WORK THOSE HIPS, STRIDER.  
TG: whoa there stallion   
TG: are you trying to take my rp virginity can we keep to one scenario  
TG: like am i carmencita the cleaning lady your wife hired or am i one of those french can can dancers or what  
EB: you're a maid that i'm paying a little extra to clean in costume. hubba hubba.  
TG: okay i can work with that  
TG: who wouldnt want to polish the family jewels while in a thong and ostrich feathers for a little over minimum wages honestly  
EB: i wonder!  
EB: anyway dad just called from the road and i was supposed to tell you guys they'll be there in under one hour barring accidents or traffic clusterfucks and whatnot.  
EB: better hope you're ready for inspection!   
TG: i am always ready for inspection senor she says while bending over like she bought her spine on clearance at ikea   
TG: was that a cracking noise you might wonder no just threw my back a little but that way im already bent over for you senor  
EB: that's hot. :X  
EB: /he says while presenting her with the *eyebrow waggle* family heirloom sword.  
TG: dude you suck at rping carmencitas head is like down to her knees its totes unrealistic that guys dong would be that long  
TG: unless youre playing a strider i guess   
TG: i have all the canon details at hand to smooth the way of your epic literary rp john you only have to ask  
EB: ... are we going to gay chicken ourselves into cybering a full scene again.  
EB: i wouldn't care but i'm kind of sitting right beside my dad's even more coddling clone.  
TG: baaawk bawk bawk bawk  
EB: haha, shut up, we're picking up where we left off the second i get away from the family.  
EB: nothing will keep us apart, carmencita. *duck lips*  
TG: ooh ooh senor strider you are so masterful and manly as shit i will wait forever for a chance to tap dat  
TG: senor ???  
TG: would it kill you to put up an away message i stg john  
EB: will you calm down, you're so needy. other dave needs loving too!  
TG: oh  
TG: okay  
TG: here i thought we had something special senor strider you me and the feather duster my heart is broken in so many pieces  
TG: all of the pieces  
TG: so is my cooch the duster was one thing but your dong was just too much  
EB: hehe it isn't called the devastator for nothing!  
TG: for the last time john its the stridernator  
EB: you can't tell me what to call my rp junk! you're not my real sugar daddy!  
EB: bluh. i am still so bummed i won't get to visit the casa de strider! it's so unfair that jade gets to.  
TG: why cant you again  
EB: because you're already going to be hosting karkat and gamzee for the next however long it takes to get rose and everyone, and then you'll be hosting rose, roxy, kanaya, and possibly rose's mom, and meanwhile there's some stuff that needs doing and guess who won that particular lottery!  
EB: woo last minute shopping, i just love it. :/  
TG: that was a rhetorical question dude have you heard of those  
TG: that was another one just in case  
TG: theres already a pile of shit were gonna throw away when we leave all ready in my bedroom for refined troll slumber tastes  
TG: or so dave tells me they seriously manage to sleep on that shit??  
TG: ps not a rhetorical question  
EB: haha yeah, dad gave gamzee and karkat pillows and quilts for their pile back home and they were politely taking them all and then slipping encyclopedias and shit underneath because it was too soft. they can sleep on some pretty crazy stuff.   
EB: like saucepans and forks. :/ gamzee will sleep seriously *anywhere*. get karkat to move him when he flops on inconvenient things though, don't do it yourself.  
TG: duly noted professor  
TG: use little shouty one as a meat shield when approaching murderhappy one  
TG: there i wrote it on my hand  
EB: nothing can go wrong now!  
EB: anyway the plane's done boarding, i've got to log out.  
EB: see you in a week!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] stopped pestering truncatedGrip [TG]--

TG: damn it i had a good parting zinger to impart how dare you leave first

You sigh, look over the rim of your iShades. Dave's at the laptop, tapping away. He sighs and leans back and your eyes meet.

"Dumped you too, huh," he says with ironic sympathy.

"What a cad," you shoot back. "Juggling with both our affections."

It's funny because it's true.

Not that John means to do it, but you know you're both a bit jealous of each other. Dave of you because you have three years of in-jokes with the guy, and you of Dave because even so John never truly considered you to be the real Dave.

Then again you're not, you're just a spare.

"I'm going to tell Bro," you both say at the same time as you both get up from your beds (yours is brand new, Ikea frame, shoved where the turntables used to be.) Only you get unbalanced and when you grab for the wall to push up, haha, joke's on you.

Makes you angry enough, and makes you angrier when he stops and stares in pitying embarrassment, that you just jump right back up and storm out past him.

"Bro! ETA one hour. I'm going to the roof."

You go to the roof.

For once there's wind, it stinks of car fumes and pollution and general mugginess; it's your city, it's good. You look up at the air conditioning units, the radio tower. You are seized with a visceral need to be up there, high as you can and almost nothing underneath you. Your back muscles spasm, pull on scars that feel older than nine days.

Nine days ago you could fly and today you can't even climb a fucking ladder, this is fucking pitiful.

... No, you know what, fuck that noise, you're climbing up anyway.

Grab handhold. Set foot one. Set foot two. Let go of handhold. Ripple your whole body up and forward to win another second from gravity. Snatch next handhold.

Move foot one. Move foot two. Let go.

It takes you four times as long as it should. Your shoulder aches. You can't wipe the sweat on your palm off, which is as aggravating and as dangerous as it sounds.

You almost slip off three times. Your timing gets better. Your body is a machine, trained to perfection, _you can do this_.

Shit -- that was close.

Almost there.

You wriggle your way onto the metal frame where the seppucrow's nest used to be. There's an odd echo, like a brush of faded memory, that makes you want to hunker down on, urgh, okay, your crow was female, you're lucky that outside of mating they're not really very gendered.

It felt right to nest up here.

You put your ass on a metal bar and your feet on another and look down at the gaping hole in between. No vertigo. You shift around a little, tuck yourself in comfortably as possible, and you look ahead and breathe.

Your ass gets numb in a matter of minutes, but you're having too much fun sulking to give in. Besides it's going to be packed for several days, and then you'll all be going on a trip -- apparently there's a ship? Apparently Jane and her dad are loaded like they'd sink the Titanic if the dough wasn't left at the bank. Apparently you're all going in style.

Alone time is going to be in hella short supply very soon and for quite a while. You should enjoy it while it lasts.

... Hell, maybe you should jerk off.

Hm.

Thirty feet above the ground. Sounds smart to you!

Goddamn hormones are perking up now though. Argh.

"Dear friends," you mumble under your breath, "we are gathered here tonight to pay tribute to Byrd Sprite Strider, recipient of this year's Darwin Awards, all categories."

You can see a hundred of windows from here, but they're all under you -- you're at the highest point for a dozen blocks or more -- and so few people think to look up and you're pretty far away from all of them. It's not like they'd see anything.

Apart from you slipping and falling off at the end.

You're pretty well braced. You are totally not going to tense or twitch at the wrong time. Hrrm...

Also you've got to train up your left hand to pick up the slack.

Yeah okay.

You have totally done stupider things, and for worse reasons. You can't remember _what_ right now but you're pretty sure you have.

Your hand is halfway past your waistband when there's a noise like a gunshot to the side. You jerk. Your foot slip. Your hand gets stuck.

 _Young man age sixteen found dead scratching the itch_ goes through your head, but you manage to jam your toes underneath a girder (ow fuck ow) and flail your hand free as your abs scream for mercy. Grab a hold. Breathe.

"Hey, Dave!" calls Jade happily from the roof.

Fuck your life.

"Nope, wrong Strider," you call back. "Actually there is no Strider. All Striders are inside. Please proceed indoors nothing to see move along."

Your boner isn't going down. Fffff. Why are you sixteen, again.

She stands there blinking and then wincing, you can see it from up here. Behind her Karkat and Gamzee are standing, squinting up at you in the dying sunset. Karkat is making unimpressed faces. Gamzee, who the fuck knows. Looks half asleep. Bec is sitting on the roof and panting.

"... Sorry, uh, Byrd. I'm more used to you being orange!"

You wave it off. "Yeah, yeah, me too, it's weird as fuck to come in, like, flesh _and_ hair tones. All is forgiven and forgotten, move along. Shoo."

Jade pouts, hands on her hips. Uh oh. "Nope, mister! You are getting down here and saying hello properly!"

... Argh.

"Listen," Karkat tells her in a way quieter voice than you expected. "We're fucking exhausted. I just want to go ahead and have a snack and crash. It's just one floor down, right?" Gamzee sways silently, you can't tell if it's out of exhaustion or that he's having fun with himself or tripping balls or what.

You have nothing against the idea of them leaving, the less spectators to behold your unfortunate boner the better. The issue is. Well. Jade. Especially Jade and your boners. That is, uh, yeah. No.

Oh hey it's deflating a bit.

Shouldn't be visible if you untuck your t-shirt first. And you know Jade is just going to keep nagging, and... well, Dirk and Bro will have left nothing but cold water in the tank which ruins the solitary enjoyment some, but by the time you get to take a shower tonight you'll probably be glad instead of frustrated.

No, you take it back, you'll still be frustrated. You bet if you could just get laid, about half of your bitchy mopey whininess would evaporate. Or if you went back to being a sprite, you have about an equal chance at both at the moment.

You sigh, discreetly adjust yourself, and swing one-handed (haha) down to the ladder. Feet planted... look ma, no hands. It goes a little faster in that direction, demands less effort from your arm and back since you don't have to pull your weight up. It's just a matter of grabbing a lower rung and stepping down, grabbing and stepping down, grabbing and stepping down, that shit manages somehow to be both dangerous and _tedious_ , blargh. You're only a bit over halfway down and you're already bored of that sh--

Look ma, no hands. Oh fuuuuuuck.

At least two people yell your name (one of your names) in various levels of horrified. Gravity forgets to bring your stomach along in its rush to get you down spine-first across the edge of the air conditioning units. This is going to hurt...

\--oof.

"You been all to eating black holes, brother? Densest motherfucker what I ever got my hold on at."

... You're upside down. Someone has you by the waist, from behind, so your legs flop forward and your ass is probably jutting impudently under their nose.

Judging from the polka-dot pants, that someone is apparently Gamzee Makara.

If your boner wasn't killed deader than Rasputin by now this would probably do the trick.

"Yeah okay thanks, can you put me down." You're still on top of the machines, but you can manage the last drop. You wriggle a bit, but the edge is a bit close to force him to drop you.

Asshole goes "Nah" and steps over the edge. You might possibly yell a little. Quietly.

He twists with the casual, unthinking grace of a cat and catches himself one-handed on the edge, and there's a yank around your waist as you both come to a stop, _before_ you hit the ground, which seems to require about zero effort from his part holy shit. You were _not_ expecting that.

He drops down the last few inches and you start squirming in earnest. "Okay _thank you_ now put me down -- hey -- where are you bringing me, ow, stop kneeing me in the back of the fucking head, goddamn it Makara I'm slipping out of my fucking pants, put me down!"

"Aw, being pantsless is good for the soul, if you got yourself one of those. Now say your motherfucking greetings to woofsis, yeah?"

He dumps you. Your arm is shaky with strain; you flop down in a very impressive, knee-bruising, facedown heap. Your waistband is halfway down your ass.

When you flop around and sit, Jade has both hands on her face and it won't stop her giggles. Karkat is staring down at you like you're a very fascinating bug that he found where a bug has no business being, such as in his food. Fuck. Your. Life.

"Nice boxers," she manages between two snickers. Karkat pinches the arch of his nose headachingly.

You accept Jade's hand to pull you up (no use pretending you still have pride) and tell yourself you can still salvage the evening if you pretend nothing happened hard enough. That lasts until six feet of murderclown lean over your shoulder and shake the bottom of your right sleeve.

"Whoa there. Where's your arm all up and at, motherfucker?"

You were embarrassed. Now you're angry.

You slap his hand off. "It eloped with your fucking brain. Mind your own business."

Karkat sighs, steps forward to catch his bro's hand, tug him out of your space. "Gamzee, how the fuck could you not see that when he was climbing down, for fuck's sake, are your eyes even open?"

"Uh, maybe like halfway?"

Karkat gives a heavy sigh. You stare. Gamzee makes a sad cow face.

"Aw, bro, but I'm all sleepy."

"How did you even _catch_ him?!" Jade marvels, and starts herding people toward the staircase. You allow it, you don't have a better idea. Can't stay on the roof to sulk anymore, now, can you.

"Dunno, felt where he was at? 'voodoos, you know." His voice goes all vague and fucking _dreamy_. "Terror and shit, _that_ they know hells of well. All sweet and singsongy..."

Creep. If he wouldn't take Jade down with him you would trip him down the stairs.

"Just... tune him out," Karkat advises, and muffles a jaw-cracking yawn. His jaw hinges weird, and suddenly you kind of wish you'd gotten to see a troll skull at some point, to see how the bones fit under there, because it's not really basic Homo sapiens.

You look away. You stick your hand in your pocket, trudge down the stairs.

"Gonna get yourself a wicked sweet robo-arm like the how spidersis used to?"

You'd puff up, if you still had feathers. "Mind. Your. Own. Business."

"Just asking, motherfucker."

"Well motherfucking don't."

"You're cranky," Karkat remarks, which is so ironic you'd weep tears of sparkly unicorn joy if you could be bothered.

You stomp down the next couple of stairs. "Dude, you saw my butt crack today and none of you assholes even brought me flowers, I'm fucking entitled."

"Chill your human tits, whinelord, we just saw too much of your taste in anthropomorphic rodents as groin covers. You're still pure for ... whatever the fuck that was."

You were almost ready to not-quite-smile, and then he had to go and yawn and drop the admittedly not exceptional comeback. Oh well. You kick the front door open and usher everyone in, and you stay way the fuck out of range of Terezi charging Karkat and Jade for a group hug.

You lean against the wall by the door, way out of the way, and you wait for them to settle the fuck down. With the way Terezi clings to Karkat you'd think she hasn't seen him in nine months, not nine days.

Dirk joins you. Damn it, Dirk. Can't you mourn your boner in sulky peace already. You arch an eyebrow at each other over the shades in a Strider's tastefully subdued and sexy as all fucks greeting.

"Popped up on the roof?"

"Mmh."

"Sorry, man."

You scowl a tiny little bit. "... For what?"

"Your super sparkly princess alone time. Shit should be sacred, is what it should be."

He nods solemnly. You kick him swiftly. Dave and Bro have emerged from their respective rooms; Dave is patting Karkat on the shoulder as awkwardly as possible while trying to keep the troll between him and Bec.

Jade bounces at Bro so suddenly you can see him just freeze for a quarter of a second, and then she's hanging off his neck and it's too late for escape. She impacts with his body -- she's light enough he doesn't even rock back much -- and she hugs the _shit_ out of him. "Hiiii _so nice to meet you!_ "

Bro _just stands there_.

From opposite ends of the room, you and Dave bite down -- too late -- on twin _pfffffffff_ s.

"Yeah, uh... Hi to you too, kiddo." He gives her a perfunctory pat on her back and starts trying to detach her. You and Dave keep not-snickering. Nope, poker faced all up that bitch.

You don't need to see Bro's eyes to know they've just darted to you and then to Dave, and that you are in for some serious payback later on. Oh well. You only live once. Or twice, depending.

Terezi is done trying to smother Karkat in her nonexistent boobs, which Dave was mostly looking longsufferingly bored about; now she's staring at Gamzee.

Who stares back, slouching lazily, hands in his clown pants pockets, eyes hooded. Neither of them makes a move to hug it out. And _now_ Dave's mouth twitches a little at the corner, folds down a bare tenth of an inch.

"Huh," says Dirk, sotto voce just for you.

"Gamzee! So good to see you so..." A pause. Terezi's mouth takes on a dubious twist. "Hang on, it'll come to me."

"Ouch, burn," you whisper to Dirk.

"Same right back atcha, sis," the clown creep shoots back. "The motherfucking _very same thing_."

A shiver goes up your spine. Huh. That voice--

"Hey, gossip girls, go back to the kitchen and make us some fucking sandwiches," Bro interrupts, suddenly in your faces, sans Jade.

You purse your lips. Sandwiches are mostly made, chilling in the fridge, which feels naked, swordless. You hope you remember where to go for a secondary weapon in case you ... somehow miss all the wall-mounted racks and the daisho in the umbrella stand.

(You kick the umbrella stand a bit in passing. "We had one of those?"

"Apparently so," Dirk says. "Terezi found it buried under years of smuppets in the crawlspace."

"Huh. Okay.")

While you're busy piling up sandwiches on paper plates and Dirk is busy making some more someone knocks again, and John's dad walks in, bags in hands and bags under his eyes, and _unshaved_ le gasp. Another round of hugs ensues; you were hoping you holding food would save you but no such luck, you get a nice side-hug complete with enthusiastic backslapping, as does a mildly alarmed Dirk, still holding two slices of ham.

"Yo, Egbert."

"Hello, Strider. Pleasure to finally meet you in person."

They have themselves a very manly hug. You call casually, "No copping a feel, Bro!" What can you say, you've been feeling like living dangerously recently.

Everyone sits where they can -- couch, computer chairs, the floor for the rest of you kids -- and start chewing, and chattering about stuff you don't even care much about. You should enjoy this but... too many people, you lost the hang of it, three years alone with only two, and the only one you really know is Jade anyway and... yeah, still awkward.

She's really nice about it, friendly as always, but you see her eyes darting to your stump a couple of times; you know she'll only feel sorry for you in the nicest, most caring, least cloying way possible and it chafes anyway.

You make sure to handle your sandwiches as securely as you can, so nothing slips out and onto the floor. As a result you don't get to eat much. It's fine. You weren't hungry.

Gamzee eats like a black hole. You don't even see it coming close to his big mouth, and then _schlurp_. Karkat seems hungry, but tired more, like even lifting the sandwiches high enough to inhale is an effort.

Half of Jade's food and all the crusts end up in Bec, but only if they're dropped right under his nose because otherwise the big white lump won't stretch himself. That tells you more about how exhausting the trip was than hearing Jade tell it.

"...had to jump us out of the moving truck _seven_ times, right to the edge of his range, and twice back to back too! Poor dog, he's not used to it anymore..."

"... and then the police lady said..."

"...what the fuck were those humans even doing in that cabin --"

"Haha bro, kinda obvious what they were all up and doing, their mating parts were all kinds of --"

" _Gamzee_ ," say Dadbert and Karkat together.

"--anyway we had to jump right back out -- saw us too, hope they won't--"

"... and then my laptop was out of batteries and we were _so bored_..."

"... motherfuckers sold the most delicious fucking snacks..."

"... and then..."

"... and so..."

It takes Karkat yawning three times in a single sentence to pause the conversation. You look up at the sudden quiet, blinking as Egbert Senior gives him a weirdly nice look and pats his shoulder. You were kind of tuning things out a bit there. Your sandwich fillings kept escaping, fuckdamnit.

"You should probably seize the moment and go to sleep now, Karkat," the man says, and Karkat nods, almost meekly. You don't know the dude very well but that seems kind of weird; you glance at Dave to see if he caught it, and _both_ his eyebrows are visible over his shades.

"Yeah, good plan, I should probably hurry before I miss the public transportation device and stay awake another sleep -- nnff -- sleep cycle..."

He gets up, a bit wobbly. Dave points at the corridor door. "You need someone to show you to my room, dude? We made you guys a pile."

"S'fine. Saw most of it on viewports. If I find the field of puppets and replica human parts I've gone too far, right?"

Bro turns to look at him, pointedly expressionless. Karkat glowers back tiredly, 'yes, _what_ ' all over his face. You bite down on a little smile.

"Naw, we did some spring cleaning."

"Yeah, plastic dongs aren't in season."

"Next year they shall bloom again, the fields of--"

"Training tomorrow morning. Early. I'll wake you up."

You exchange looks with Dirk and Dave, past a giggling Jade and a mildly scandalized, pink-cheeked Dadbert. The consensus is that this was still totally worth it. Strider consensus. Stridersensus? Meh.

But Karkat is still standing there looking half asleep on his feet, and you're so not up for another five hours of blabbering deep into the night, anyway. You put your paper plate on Dave's knee, pull yourself up a bit awkwardly. "Wait a sec, I'll show you. You might get lost between the one closet and the bathroom otherwise, we never know."

You lead the way down the one corridor and select one of the three doors (closet, Bro bedroom, Dave bedroom) and tadahh, you're there. The pile of crap is particularly prominent.

"Okay if you don't both have your own piles?"

"S'fine," Karkat mutters as he advances zombie-style on the pile. The shadows under his hooded eyes are dark as charcoal. There's red flecks in there too, you think, but you don't get much time to make sure because he closes them and flops across broken sword hilts, empty DVD cases and old takeout cardboard boxes with the grace and lightness of a felled tree. Ouch?

A bit of squirming, and then he sighs and goes still, and damn if he isn't three-fourths asleep already.

"Uh. Well. ...Goodnight?"

"Mnnnh."

You take a change of clothes to sleep in from the cupboard, and abscond to the bathroom before someone else can sneak in.

\--

The water is freezing.

Your dong refuses to be stopped for such a trifle.

You're damned glad to abscond back to your bed and burrow in blankets afterwards, though.

\--

" _mnrfggh gmzee stopthat._ "

You frown a little bit, flip on your side, facing the wall. Mm sleep.

" _gamzee damn it._ "

... Hrrm. Won't he just shut up already.

Ah good. Silence...

Why are they _breathing_ so loud.

" _jus' lemme fuckin sleep, stop that, just turn on y'r other side 'kay..._ "

You stare at the wall. You can't see it but you stare anyway. You're still half asleep but you can feel that state lifting slowly, and then there won't be any getting it back. Damn it, no.

"Ow!" Crash.

Apparently some asshole fell right off the pile, along with half the shit on it. Gamzee keeps sleeping, breathing blissfully loud. Karkat pushes himself up and knocks his head into your bed frame.

"Ow, fuck." Shuffle, shuffle. "Gamzee, move over. Hey, stop sprawling. Hey --"

"Oh will you shut the fuck up," you mutter, head rolling back on the pillow to talk over your shoulder.

"No, _you_ shut the fuck up," he shoots back in a not-too-quiet whisper, but he sounds more sulky and exhausted than anything. "Gamzee... aw, what the fuck ever."

You hear something flop. You let yourself roll on your back, glance over the edge of the mattress. The clock gives out just enough light to make out a green-haloed shape huddled sadly on the bare floor.

"...You're in front of the door, numbnuts."

"Shaddup."

Bro is going to step on him tomorrow, and then no one will ever hear the end of it. You can see it coming like it's a freight train and you're the princess securely tied to the rails. "Just... You know what, just climb up here and shut up and let me sleep, okay."

You're blaming exhaustion, and also the fact that really you don't give much of a fuck. You don't even count the nights where Jade or John (or okay sometimes you) would request to spend the night with one or the two left on the battleship. You bet he won't smother you in man-chest like John used to. Or end up wrestled into a knot with your sprite tail, see also: Jade. Or crushing your wings with his fat ass. Or...

... Okay, yeah, your wings are pretty safe from crushing now.

You don't know if you'd have brooded more, because then the mattress dips a bit behind you. You crane your neck. A ghostly green troll is staring at you, and whoa, his eyes flash like a cat's.

"You sure?" he mumbles, zombie style.

"Just keep to your own damn side of the mattress, we won't have no problem."

"I. Uh. Might have nightmares and... Stuff. Mnh. Claws."

Frrrgh. "Don't give a fuck, kitty claws me up, kitty gets punted right off the bed. Get on if yer gonna."

"Mnh 'kay."

The kitty crack barely gets you a tired scowl. He pulls himself up, flops on his side, back to you, ten respectable inches left between your spine and his. You wrap yourself back up.

It's weird and all, but you're too sleepy for introspection. As long as he doesn't start moving again you do not... mnh... give a -- yawn -- fuck.

Mmh.


	3. 3 - Day ten

You wake to a thumping noise, Dave going _ow_.

You don't want to be awake, you're warm and nice and cuddlysafe, but this sounds just too suspicious. Your eyes crack open.

Bro's face is about ten inches away from your own.

"--Ghhk."

He stares. You stare back. You hate how you don't sleep in your shades, even though sleeping in shades is stupid and a great way to get them broken and anyway iShades need to recharge too. He can see your naked face, which is even more embarrassing than if you were actually naked.

Well, fuck. Looks like he's not going to take no for an answer today.

He tilts his head a little. You cringe, brace yourself.

"Cute."

... The fuck?

You blink. Your hand twitches to grab the covers and pull them up, on pure reflex, and oh hey you're stuck. You look down.

You seem to have sprouted a growth in the form of a troll.

Karkat has a leg draped across your groin and then folded back somehow under your knee, his arms are curled against his chest between the two of you with the wrists folded Praying Mantis style, and his head is craned at an uncomfortable angle in the crook of your shoulder. Now that you're thinking about it, something hard -- horn -- is digging into your flesh a bit. You are going to explode into pins and needles the second he's off you.

"Out of consideration for our guest and his pet murderclown, you get five minutes to extricate yourself, and then I'm dragging you out of bed and up the stairs by the ankle."

Dave follows Bro out, snickering sleepily in his hand. Asshole. You let your head flop back on the pillow and vaguely consider going right back to sleep, because it's actually pretty warm in here, thanks. Barring the impending pins and needles.

You only got one hand left, don't want it falling off.

"Hey, dude."

No reaction. You bounce your shoulder some. His nose wrinkles a little... and then he winds his leg tighter around yours.

You don't know if you should feel grateful or not when you realize his thigh is the only thing that saved Bro's eyes from having to behold your morning wood.

His warm, bare, soft thigh. Grinding sloooowly across your beef bayonet. _Ffffff_.

You're still wearing boxers, so that's at least one single, thin, cottony layer, but his briefs have pretty wide legs and this one's all bunched up and uh, err. Shit. Definitely can't say if this is something to be grateful for _at all_. Likely you shouldn't be wondering at all, he's asleep and used to sleeping on his platonic cuddle-bro who _probably_ doesn't pop wood at his vulnerable and trusting form.

It just feels _nice_ , okay. Like... really nice. _Yes, proceed_ nice.

Okay. Time not to be a sleaze. You slow down your breathing to the best of your abilities -- ngh ngh _nghhhh_ \-- bounce your shoulder again, making his head roll. "Dude, wake up, you're on my arm."

"Mnrgfgh."

You can't feel your hand and the angle is weird. Makes grabbing for his shirt collar and tugging him back pretty much impossible. "I only have one fucking arm and _you're on it_ and I really need to -- uh -- _scratch my balls,_ and you're getting in the way of that something hardcore, not cool, Vantas, seriously not cool."

He wrinkles his nose again. If he thinks playing it cute will help...

"And if you get snot on my shirt I swear to God--"

"Nrgh. Lemme sleep. Nice sleep. W'n more." He bats at your chest blindly, with claws. Ow. "Nice pile. Sleep. Shoosh."

"It's not a pile, assmuffin, it's my chiseled pectorals."

A red-flecked eye cracks open. Blink. Blink. His nose is to your chin; he leans back a little.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry."

"No prob." You hurry to sit up, bringing up your knees to camouflage your inconvenient hard-on. Your arm is dead, prickling weight. You shake it, teeth clenched as blood rushes back in.

He frees you, flops on his other side. Your crotch cannon is cold. He feels around, steals your pillow, bunches it up weird and drapes his chest on it, face down, so that his head and his hips hang off it in the most uncomfortable way possible. You pause briefly in the middle of crawling to the foot of the bed for escape to stare. Completely ridiculous.

Eventually you stand on the floor. Freedom and victory!

Your little sailor is still hoisting the flag. Bluh. Okay, shades on your face, you've just got to grab your jeans and shoes -- argh tingling arm, argh bending over -- and then tiptoe to the cracked-open door...

"Mnh... Daveuhhnm... spri -- uh -- Byrd?"

Oh fuck, he saw you. Wait, no, are his eyes open? No, but they _could_ be.

Crotch-level is totally an awesome place to hold jeans at. Yep.

"... s'too soft..."

You hesitate.

Think, _oh, fuck it_ , drop your clothes and shoes on the turntable, and go, crotchsword brazenly exposed, to tuck an old keyboard under his cheek.

He's out like a light in about two seconds.

You feel like a master ninja for the next two seconds, floating on the awesome of your impossible escape, and then you close the door behind you and run face-first into Bro's waiting chest.

\--

Your bruises have bruises.

Bro had you using the back of your katana blade. You have managed not to cut yourself, or anyone else.

Your footwork is shit, your balance is shit, you can still flashstep (surprise!) but on arrival you tend to not brake properly (flashstep requires perfect control of every single muscle, the perfect awareness of your weight and your place and position in space; the lack of symmetry is a huge fucking concern tyvm) and you bump into shit.

In short you feel like shit.

Also in between setting you to duel Dave (butt: kicked) and being watched over by Dirk to spot the flaws (many) in your kata, Bro dueled you three times, hoping to trigger you don't fucking even know what. Some magical rad Striderstinct for fighting maimed, maybe.

Times you tried to parry with your right hand? You're not sure, but you'd probably just need to count the katana-shaped bruises.

Also you got bitchslapped in the nose by smuppet dong.

It's ten AM when he finally allows you to crawl away, the sun rising fast toward the zenith and too hot already. "Okay. It'll do for now."

No it fucking won't. Blurgh. But when you thump down the stairs Jade and Terezi are making breakfast. You instantly forgive everything.

"Ah, Byrd!" Terezi says without (of course) turning back. "Taste this, tell me what you think!"

Milk and chocolate. How can it go wrong. You sit nearby, take the offered bowl, sip. "I think..."

"Yes?"

"I think why the fuck did you put tomato sauce in it, Terezi, just dear lord, why, tell me that."

You drink it anyway, because it's warm and sugary and you've been up since five AM getting your ass kicked up and down the roof. It tastes like chocolate pizza.

In a very odd way it is actually not that bad, but you will never admit it.

"Obviously I haven't yet lost the hope of converting you to the perfection of tomato. It's red! It goes with everything!" She nods, concludes firmly, "It is the very best vegetable. Fruit. Thing."

"Whoops," Jade replies through a laugh, "You're mispronouncing pumpkin. Pumpkin is obviously the best vegetable fruit thing. You can make bread and pie and roasted seeds and soup and _lanterns_ with it. What do you _do_ with a tomato? Apart from squashing it."

They mock-glare at each other, lips sternly pursed. Jade's eyes are dancing. Terezi's black lips quirk like a pleased, playful alligator. "Whoa there, no clash of the Titans in my kitchen, girls. You'd level the building, at least wait until we've moved out or something--"

It occurs to you a bit late that in matter related to girls you and Dave might have a _type_. That type can be summarized in three words: petite, crazy, _bulldozer_.

Though 'tornado' might also be accurate.

Devastate me harder bb.

Bluh. You dive back in your chocotomato milk, breakfast of tasteless champions.

Mr. Egbert emerges from the shower with his hair still damp, and newly smooth-faced. Jade gets him a cup of coffee.

"When do you leave, sir?" Terezi asks. You have not seen this smile on her before. It seems to say ... you're not sure, something in between 'You are huge and possibly worrisome so I'll be politely wary until I figure out how to one-shot you' (that's the Bro look) and 'I like you can I lick your face just a tiny little bit please no pressure but come on pretty please' (so _this_ is what restraint looks like on her. Hahaha.) Makes for a really funny mix.

"Hm. I'll say, fifteen minutes for breakfast, and then we'll take a taxi to the airport. We should be in the plane at noon, and at the Lalondes' by six or seven, provided no plane is delayed."

"I hope they don't lose Bec in between the two planes, it'll be a pain for him to jump in," Jade adds, mouth pursed in doubt. "I hear they lose a ton of luggage, what if they put him on the wrong plane? We should have disguised him as a seeing eye dog."

Terezi of course wants to hear all about seeing eye dogs. No, they're not telepathic or anything. Yes, they're usually Bec-sized. No, they're not usually trained as attack dogs as well but Jade supposes they could--

"Bro! Terezi wants a puppy," you call blandly as he walks in.

"Bzzt, denied," he calls back without looking, which is exactly the response you predicted. (And hoped for, to be honest. Urgh, dogs.)

Terezi makes a show of looking crushed, which is a bit unexpected considering the guy she's joking around with is Bro. "Aw, but I could train it to chase down miscreants!"

He pauses and gives her a dubious, potentially disappointed look. "You'd need that?"

Terezi counters with her own dubious look, mouth twisted in a vaguely miffed pout. "Well you guys are a bit lacking in dragons, I have to make do somehow."

"I'll teach you flashstep if you drop the puppy, okay?" He gets himself a cup of coffee, leans his hip against the table beside where Mr. Egbert is sitting, quiet laughter shaking his shoulders. "You can do your pouncing and rending to pieces your own self that way."

Jade is giggling. Terezi hums, considering it most seriously. "Hm. Very well."

They shake on it.

You live with lunatics. You ignore them and reach over their hands to grab a box of Lucky Charms.

Munch, munch. Jade and Terezi depart. Dirk and Dave appear. You take your time. Not like you can hold your toast _and_ butter it, now can you, and dry toast is disgusting, so.

Gamzee emerges, hair a writhing medusa, Karkat doesn't. Gamzee leaves right back, comes back with a feebly wriggling body thrown over his shoulder, plops him down in the empty chair at the end of the counter on your right.

"Weren't you supposed to be the insomniac one?" you wonder. Karkat blinks at you fuzzily, and then slumps over the counter in slow motion. "... Never mind. Coffee?"

"Mnh."

"Got no more nightsisters to be getting your nightmare on with," Gamzee says as he drags in a stool to sit between the two of you. "Bad dreams are all to be coming from a motherfucker's own silly pan, now aren't they, bro?"

"That's still plenty," Karkat grouches, eyes still heavy-lidded. He feels around for the coffee pot. You shift it closer wordlessly, before he can manage to bat it into turning over on your lap. "Guess I didn't have much of them yesterday, comparatively -- ah, thanks."

"D'aww."

You crane your neck to arch an eyebrow pointedly at Dave, who just flashstepped in.

"You guys are so sweet to each other. Even _polite_ and all. This is like the perfect morning after. I be mad flustered, yo."

Karkat looks at him, baffled. "Okay, I must not be awake yet because what the fuck. What the fuck is what I am thinking."

"Dude, you were snuggling my broclone so tight I thought he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen this morning. How the hell did that even happen, Makara, you letting your palebro sneak off for extramoirallous activities now?"

Now Gamzee is staring at you, and it's still mostly vague and easygoing but there's a little spark of something really unpleasant behind that.

"You kicked me off the pile, asstard," Karkat says, rolling his eyes, and gives his chest a light backhanded tap. "The only space left over was by the door, he just let me have the available mattress space."

"Oh, so you were taking advantage of his pure, trusting heart, then? You _cad_."

You snort, because noble heart, your ass, you were mostly thinking you just wanted him to shut the hell up and let you go back to sleep.

"Here he was, flustered like a maiden by your advances--"

You weren't flustered, you were _ohshitboner_ ing. Also Dave is being an ass, but you're not sure who at, exactly.

"Dude, are you trying to embarrass me about my cuddle abilities," you drone. "You can't, don't even try, I have full confidence in my tender embrace mastery. I am the Cuddle Lord, bitches come from all over the planet for a chance at my mad snuggles. Don't blame a poor lonely alien for wanting a piece of this action."

Karkat slashes a hand down between Dave and you, looking baffled. "Okay, what the fuck?"

You shrug. "You thought I was your oddly fleshy pile this morning. No problem."

You're inclined to be generous about that, seriously, because if you give him a hard time about using you as a teddy bear... well, he doesn't know about the pants party but you can give yourself shit about it in your own head easy enough, and probably better than he could even. Better to just wipe the slate clean, wow Byrd you are so generous, a regular prince is you.

Karkat stares at you for a few seconds and then colors a little bit. "Oh, uh. I think I remember some of that. Sorry?"

You shrug. (Gamzee is still eyeing you sideway.) "I told you it was cool, bro. Three years with the Egbert-Harleys, cuddlextravaganza platonic brorgies were totally a thing. I am a brosnuggling _pro_."

Dave is looking dubious, eyebrows furrowed. You smile, just a tiny little ominous thing.

"Want me to show you, twinny-poo?"

You lean in, arm open, earnest as you can be. He jerks back. Victory. " _Nothat'sokay_." Sweet, sweet victory.

Karkat muffles a snicker in his coffee; bubbles splatter drops on his face. Gamzee wipes them off with his hand before you're even done looking, rude.

"Poor sorry bastard didn't get much all to cuddling with his Rosesis, so motherfucking sad-making I'd up and weep," Gamzee muses, eyeing Dave in a way that makes your brow furrow. You really hope he's not going caliwhatever on Dave's ass, just because Dave is being cranky in his general vicinity, that doesn't mean he'd want to be black right back. Oh, troll quadrants, who can even understand the fuck out of them.

"Dude, Rose and _snuggly_ don't even belong to the same language." Dave huffs, arms crossed defensively, like he thinks you might try to cuddlebomb him anyway. You make a note to wait until his guard is down.

Dadbert had fucked off for parts unknown at some point, you weren't paying attention; he comes back, and he's wearing his jacket and doing up his tie and he has his hat on. Jade drops from the ceiling trap to the crawlspace, neat little dress well-pressed and hair braided back in a heavy rope that swings behind her. She whistles for Bec. Mr. Egbert walks up to you. Um...?

Oh, no, just to Karkat and Gamzee.

"We'll be going now, children. I will call you when we get to Mrs. Lalonde's place."

"You don't have to," Karkat replies, but he sounds weirdly reluctant. "It's not that long."

Mr. Egbert smiles, repeats, gently stubborn, " I will call you."

He turns back to send Bro a long, heavy look that leaves you totally baffled. Bro shrugs one shoulder, the other one propped up against the doorjamb to the corridor. "No worries. I'll treat 'em better than my own."

Egbert quirks a reluctantly amused smile. "That seems a bit excessive..."

"Spoiler," says Dirk from his computer, "you don't want him to treat them exactly like his own." He rubs pointedly at his bruised elbow.

Mr. Egbert chortles. You watch him turn around to hug Gamzee, who _melts_ and nudges the base of his horn against his skull, dislodging the hat, and then Karkat who's oddly tense and maybe a bit misty-eyed seriously what the fuck.

Jade is making the rounds, hugging her way clockwise around the room. You protest, "Harley, it's just a couple of days," but nope, you get your hug too. Sigh.

You almost miss Karkat's " _uhbyedad_."

You don't miss Mr. Egbert's "Goodbye, son." Or the disturbing tenderness on his face.

Or the way Gamzee's grinning.

It's almost fucking _cute_. Murdercreep the fuzz-brained has no business being _cute_.

"Uh?" you say to no one as they follow Mr. Egbert to the door and watch him and Jade leave and wave their pressed handkerchiefs and weep or whatever.

Door closed. Terezi draws closer to the other trolls, who are now standing with their backs to the door eyeing the Strider party like you guys are about to descend on them like a mass of blond, impeccably classy slaughterfiends. She punches Karkat's arm, friendly, snorts at Gamzee in a way that makes his brow furrow and his back unslouch a little bit.

Then Bro lets out this tiny little quiet sigh and says, "I'd have to be pretty stupid to cross that man, y'know."

The fuck. You stare. They're staring at Bro so intensely, it's... wow. Just weird. You glance at Dave, in case it's a troll thing -- he's the one who lived with them for years, you don't know much more than jack shit about any aliens -- but he's just watching the proceedings, mouth a perfectly neutral, practiced line.

"... Hatdad's that much of a motherfucking badass?" Gamzee asks. Bro quirks him a faint smile.

"That and I wanna tap dat ass. Not gonna ruin my chances at that, yeah?"

You groan out loud. "Jegusfuck Bro, we don't need to hear it!"

"For the _last_ fucking time, he's shacked up with Roxy's older self, you are not breaking my moirail's double's heart. Boff the other one."

"Lil' Janey's dad? The Crocker one?" Bro answers Dirk with a musing little hmm. You want to whimper. "I guess they _are_ the closest thing to identical we've got..."

You do not know what you find the wrongest in this conversation. Dirk randomly borrowing troll terms for his relationships is one thing that doesn't bother you much, seeing how he grew up in a future where that was pretty much the only culture he knew in real-time. The implication that it isn't even the first time they've talked about boffing John's dad, though, now that one ranks pretty close to the top.

Blue ribbon of fucked-upness goes to the fact that this conversation is even happening, though.

Jane's dad's name is ... you think Phil, John's is Paul, but you wonder if that's the same way you remember both that Bro is secretly named Burt, and that when you were looking at his ID when you were ten year old it used to say Dirk.

Meanwhile you had to go to the city hall yourself to fix the "administrative mistake" that had all your papers made to Dave Sprite. Seriously two twins both named Dave, did Bro look like the kind of weirdo douche who'd do that to his kids? Honestly. ...Not _too_ honestly.

"... Well, you guys are still Crocker's nephews," Bro is saying, "he'd get pissed off by proxy."

"His what now," you say, before you've thought twice.

"Augh. Which one is nephews again? I can't make heads or tails of that shit," Karkat protests, running a hand through his messy fringe.

"Brother's children," Bro explains with surprising patience and an even more surprising lack of fuckery. "You're his nephews, he's your uncle, barring the existence of a more direct ancestor -- a grandparent -- he's the one who'd get saddled with you guys and John if Egbert kicked it tomorrow."

Karkat makes an ooh face like the thought that there might be a next step in the chain of custody never ever crossed his mind.

"No, okay, what," you say again, because seriously.

Terezi turns in your direction, mouth pursed. "You didn't know? Mr. Egbert has agreed to become Karkat and Gamzee's lusus. That's legal, right?"

"Teez, babe, you've asked me ten times, you've checked the internet and all that shit," Dave says with a sigh. "Why you gotta ask him for confirmation, he's not gonna tell you anything I didn't."

You're just sitting here blinking, personally. You look over at Dirk, sitting by the computer, but both his eyebrows are a little visible over his shades which indicates pretty clearly that it's news to him as well.

"You guys don't have a legal identity so I don't know if legal is the word," Dirk says. "But it's what I hear as well." He shrugs, nods his head meaningfully toward Bro. "Then again in matters of biological relationships I don't know how we'd make it closer, so..."

Okay.

Bro knows. Dave apparently knows. Neither of them told you. Okay, it's not exactly personally relevant and besides all Striders are close-mouthed bastards about personal information... (Is it wrong to miss how with John and Jade you never really had to _wonder_?)

... _John_ didn't tell you. Granted it's been two days and he's been busy packing, but how long would it have taken, now? _By the way I have two new alien brothers, isn't that cool._ But nope, jack shit.

You don't care if Mr. Egbert wants to become a troll nanny or what the fuck ever. It's his choice and everyone you've seen today seems okay with it. It stings more about how John didn't tell you (did he tell Dave?) something that must have had at least _some_ impact on him.

"So, should we make like an announcement board or were Dirk and I the last two not to know?"

"Pretty much," Karkat answers casually. You scowl, you can't help it. He quirks his eyebrows at you. "... Did that sound a little bitter or do I need my auditory clogs cleaned?"

He's loud enough even with his indoor voice. You glower back. Fuck. Need a sidestep -- "Dude, it's vital that I know if I've just become ex-cousins in law with a juggalo, okay. That's too intricate a human family problem for your little troll thinky head-flesh to handle, I know, but seriously."

"It's thinksponge, shitslurp."

He moves a little closer to you, fingers sort of tucked at the tips in his pockets instead of all the way in, pretend-relaxed. You wonder at that a bit. What the heck is the matter with trolls, you think, that they react to being houseguests like they've been parachuted into enemy territory. Terezi hid it better but that didn't make it not there.

"John didn't tell Jade either, if that helps," he adds, eyebrows furrowed like he wonders why you're such a whiny asslord. "I made a memo about it. And then Dad took it over and erased it and Sollux posted fucking screenshots everywhere, how did you not see it. You should have joined group chats more often, see, the blame rests solely on your own dumb antisocial self."

Your eyes twitch. Were you really so fucking transparent that even this guy you barely know could tell what really got wedged up your ass sideways?

Only he does know you, or almost; he knows Dave.

Some days you kind of hate everyone who does. Dirk can stay, you suppose, he met you both roughly at the same time and he's weirdly good at keeping you two separate, but some days you're so tempted to invite the rest of the world to kindly dance their way to the West through a resplendent field of fuck-off roses.

"The screenshots were especially magnificent," Dave tells you like he thinks it helps, the tool, "I can forward them to you if you want, shit was almost embarrassingly tender."

Dirk twitches. "Don't you dare use that word. It is anathema, barred from fucking civilized discourse for the next fifteen eons at the very least, I'm serious."

"Tender?" Dave repeats, mildly baffled. Dirk twitches again. " _Tenderrrrr_."

"That's _it_. You, me and the roof have a bro-date. The time is now. Bring it, bro."

" _Why_ _are you all such basket cases_ ," Karkat concludes. Terezi snickers and elbows Gamzee pointedly in the ribs before jogging to Dave, who's attempting to navigate without tripping to the door while also trying to keep a staring contest with Dirk going. Through shades. You don't get how you are even the same person as this guy, god knows _you_ are never such an embarrassment.

Ill-advised radio tower joystick-playing incidents notwithstanding.

Bro watches it all from start to finish, and it's only now that four people have left -- Gamzee trailed Terezi and Dave with a weird, grating growl in his throat -- that you even remember he's here. Guy's a ninja of the highest order, the way he just erases his presence somehow and you don't even remember he's standing there in plain fucking sight.

You can feel yourself flushing. You get up, gather as much shit as you can in one hand, and see about cleaning up your spot at the breakfast table and looking too productively busy to nag.

After a few seconds Karkat draws closer to help you gather things. It's all you can do not to growl at him.

"I ate too, shitslurp," he reminds you with a roll of his eyes, and steals the sponge from the sink before you can get back to it. "Besides that place is such a pigsty I'm not ready to trust any of you assholes to take a stab at sanitary and do anything but stick yourselves in the locomotion fronds and catch gangrene and die."

Well, whatever. Gathering crumbs is a two-handed job.

You put away the milk and butter and meat and the coffee stuff, and you pretend you don't notice the way he keeps glancing nervously back at the doorway where Bro was, only a second ago.


	4. 4 - Still day ten

Somehow you and Karkat end up spending the afternoon molding perfect hollows in the shape of your respective asses into the couch cushions.

The shitty daytime soaps weren't going to watch themselves.

You've been watching them because they're hilarious. Karkat's been watching them "for research purposes," he said, and then spent the next three episodes wringing his imaginary handkerchief over the fate of Jose and Angelita's not-so-evil twin (wasn't _that_ one a twist.)

Watching Karkat watch TV is also hilarious. You did not expect that. He keeps ranting about how stupid the characters are and how stupid the writers are and how stupid the people wasting their time watching that tripe are, and then he all but makes _shipping grids_.

"Naw, dude, I can't believe I have to school you on this, okay they're sort of friends but Daniel obviously _likes_ being a shit to Marcelo. He's not _pale_ for him, he's gray. Totally gray. Him and Stefanie, man, he cockblocks like a champ, guy's got a radar for poor assholes who are about to have more fun that he does in the below-the-belt department."

"... Oh, huh. Ashen? You had better be right, I'm so tired of rivalries that turn out to be nothing more personal than them both wanting the same girl flush. Turn some of that energy into something more productive, you daft taintlickers!"

You have a lot of fun winding him up about his favorite character being about to die from a gruesome mystery sickness that makes her throw up in the morning and somehow look more radiant and desirable to every single male who might be misunderstood to be a half-believable babydaddy candidate. Here comes the stage where the actress starts adding pillows under her shirt...

"Oh _shit yes_ the gut-burster scene, I love that one, so glad I didn't miss it. The CGs on the parasite are kind of shitty but--"

Karkat goes flying at Dave, who just appeared, leaning on his elbows on the back of the couch. He bounces on the shitty springs and bats at your clonebro, screeching, " _No no no no no fuck you no spoilers you humongous bulgebite no she's not going to die!_ "

You were planning to say something exactly like that. You'd been leading up to it. The response is everything you'd wished for.

You glare at Dave over the edge of your iShades.

One hand on Karkat's chest to hold him at bay, he arches an eyebrow at you -- like he's surprised that stealing your setup annoys you. Hn.

... Come to think of it he doesn't look _quite_ right. His mouth's kind of pinched.

"Down, snarlbeast, you'll miss the death scene."

"Fuck you," Karkat wails, tortured, "oh god where are they taking her are those docterrorists shitfuckhell _what is that dilated business_?!"

Karkat flops back in his ass-hollow, leans in, eyes wide. Dave crooks a smile but it comes out kind of wrong.

You hesitate to ask. You're not sure if you want to give a fuck. You're not sure if you _should_. You wouldn't like it if he went nosing into some of your shit, but about some other shit then it'd feel worse -- like you don't matter -- if he didn't... Argh, this is complicated.

"Okay, yes, this is shaping up to be pretty ashen," Karkat admits tensely as he pretends he's not torturing himself about Liliana's impending gruesome demise. "You might be better at this than Dave ever was."

If you still had a ruff you'd totally preen it a bit.

"Dude, I just didn't care. Still fucking don't, in fact, and by the way ashen is the straight up worst fucking quadrant."

Slow blink. Karkat frowns, looks over his shoulder. "You want to say that again, bulgeguzzler?"

Whoops, silly alien just gave Dave an excuse to vent at length, which you now recognize he was kind of prodding for and wow, look at 'er go. "Worst. Fucking. Quadrant and I don't understand how anyone would ever want to get in it and Byrd, I'm nominating you to take over in case it's ever fucking needed, because it was already bad enough to have _Gamzee_ as a potential quadrant-corner, but to have him as a _quadrant_ and lose Terezi as my _actual fucking girlfriend_ is so many worlds of hell no that I don't --"

"What?" Karkat asks, voice weirdly normal for the expression on his face.

They stare at each other. You wonder what the fuck. You wonder it a lot.

"What, what, they keep beating the shit out of each other--"

"That's just _sparring_ ," Karkat counters, back turned to the forgotten soap. And here came the birth scene too, you're so bummed. Especially because you understand jack shit anymore.

"And being like non-stop snarky and hostile and completely fixated on making the other dude burst out into pretty colors on the roof?"

"Not every hate has to turn out non-platonic--"

"Also getting in each other's space and slapping each other open-handed like they're mean girls working up to a catfight. Dunno, maybe you had to be there to get the vibe but..."

Karkat slowly sinks back into his seat. "Oh. No, you're. Sounds like you're right. Slapping is a -- pretty caliginous move."

"Okay, pause," you say. "Rewind. Insert subtext here. Kick the sub to the curb. Make the subtext text." Karkat stares blankly at you. "Do I have to rap?"

Dave frowns, worried, as he looks at Karkat. "Uh. Karkat used to, like... _like_ Terezi. In the hate way."

Oooh. And now his nonporking boyfriend is making a move on her. Okay. Huh.

"I thought, uh, Terezi told me a while ago about him, I thought it was, like, some kind of quadrant etiquette to give a heads up. Was she just being considerate to a dumbass human or what?"

Having to explain troll bullshit to humans seems to focus Karkat a little, but his mouth stays folded tight at the corners, his eyes a bit vague. "Technically you don't _have_ to. So long as there's no conflict of interests to sort out. And I -- she's not my flushmate and it's not like anything ever happened for real between us and I was, I kind of gave up a while ago anyway..."

"But it's still a bit of a dick move, huh." Dave sighs, slumps against the back of the couch. "Shit, man, sorry, I didn't know you didn't know. Terezi came to me on the meteor about it, actually."

"... On the meteor," Karkat repeats quietly, which neither you nor Dave like much.

"Hey, I'm just human, she needed a while to ease me into it, right?" Dave frowns a bit. "You okay?"

He blinks, shrugs, turns back to face the screen. "Yeah, sure. Whatever."

You don't believe it one second, but you're not the guy's platonically romantic BFF...

"... _Where the taint-tickling fuck is the wiggler coming from?!_ "

\--

Dinner time comes and goes. Bro sends a message saying Dirk decided to get revenge for being forced to go shopping ( _outside_ , where there's _people_ ) by dragging him to the most obscure hardware shops possible to stockpile on expensive robot-making shit, and now they're just going to stop by some place Bro knows to get a bite.

You and Dave and Karkat eat whatever leftovers you can scrounge up at the counter, and you talk about how likely it is that Bro is actually taking Dirk surprise!DJing with him (very likely) and you _don't_ talk about how likely it is that Terezi and Gamzee are porking in the staircase (also very likely.)

When Dave starts musing about whether he should bring them up some food in case they haven't noticed the time you take it upon yourself to kick him in the ankle all ninja-like and fire up your sweet internet shades.

TG: good way not to be ashen mr cockblock mcinsecurity  
TG: oh fuck you  
TG: unless youre trying for like a davesandwich or something maybe if they hate you enough theyll totally bang you  
TG: eiffel tower would be cool that way they cant even touch junk any other way than through your sexy alabaster bent over proxy  
TG: good job im never going to eat again  
TG: more leftovers for me thanks youre a real bro

Karkat doesn't react.

You don't even really know the guy more than superficially but you can tell this is kind of pretty wrong. His face is all... still and droopy, not animated and expressive enough to give any normally constituted person a full-out eyebrow sprain. He picks at his food. He... just... argh.

It's not your job to get someone you barely know to cough up all the ways in which his actual platonically romantic BFF danced a jolly polka on his tender feelings.

At the tail end of dinner Dadbert calls on the landline and Karkat disappears in the bedroom with the phone. Dave plants himself sulkily on the couch. You're not too sure you want to hang out with him, not when he's being such a cranky little bitch (what a crime that you would totally never commit,) but you can't intrude on Karkat's phone call either and where else is left? Bro's room? There's a difference between flirting with danger and walking up to danger to punch it in the face.

In the interest of not being a total hypocrite you go to sit beside Dave on the couch. He keeps channel-surfing at random and not really acknowledging you, which would be even more aggravating if you were watching any of what he just clicked away from.

"Dude, do you even want to look at anything, or do you just want to soothe your itchy trigger finger? 'cause usually you don't shoot with your thumb."

"You got me, bro, my eyes are actually closed behind my shades."

"Attempting smellovision?"

The second it comes out of your mouth you wince. Dave's eyebrows go a little more furrowed.

"Uh."

You don't know how to approach this. Or even if you should. You _are_ Dave but this is a part of him that you don't get. Most of the time you don't _want_ to.

You have no idea how to don kid gloves, and with your strife deck not being fistkind you're pretty sure you couldn't equip them anyway ha ha ha.

Ha.

"If you can't handle her quadrants it's not going to work, dude."

Dave scowls deeper and burrows in the couch, oozing downwards so he's more than two thirds horizontal. "I can handle them just fine, bub," he grits out, "shut your schooling trap, you haven't got the diploma."

"Uh huh, 'cause waiting up like an overprotective parent--"

"Shut up--"

"--Or a jilted lover, yeah--"

" _She's not cheating on me!_ I don't want her to _hate_ me, fuck, I don't ever fucking want that."

You pause, stare at him. He's glaring at you now but it's more sullen than anything, red eyes over the edge of his shades, he hasn't made a move to sit up straighter. You're pissing him off but mostly by saying out loud shit he's already thinking. You wonder if he actually believes what he's saying there. A lesser asshole might start crowing about denial.

Haha crowing you made a funny.

Seems like he's still mulling over some shit, so you wait for Dave to talk himself into telling you, because fuck if you can't guess he wants to tell _someone_ , and you might as well be it. Not like you got anything better to do with your evening.

"You think I haven't thought about that shit before?" he asks; he looks tired. He looks older than you, and that's weird, that's wrong, you're the one who has four months on his stupidly innocent ass. "You think we didn't talk it to _death_? I know she needs it." Quieter now; uncomfortably so. You shift in your seat a little. "And she's worth it, so I'll deal. It's just that guy I don't trust, what if he flips platonic murderous mid-makeout?"

You are totally believing that. "Then you call in the little shouty one and let him shoosh his ass into oblivion? That's his job, right, if I get any of that quadrants bull."

Dave is chewing on his lip. He probably doesn't even realize. Bro would kick him in the ass for that if he were around. "What if it's too late?"

"What if you go tell Terezi to her face that you don't trust her to handle her own shit, when she can smell the lies on you from like three miles off, yeah, she totally wouldn't smell him turning off the pheromone faucet." He grimaces; you sigh, massage your temples. Why are you letting yourself be dragged in, you don't even like Terezi, you don't _want_ to like her, she and the juggalo are welcome to each other.

(No, you know why, 'cause if you didn't actively dislike her and work to keep in mind all the ways in which she fucked you over you'd end up accidentally liking her, possibly too much; see also: Pretty Much Your Type And Also Taken You Sad Douche. Stopping that shit assault at the butt pass, thanks. There will be no clusterfuck of inappropriate feelings diarrhea for your other self's girl.

You're a pro at clenching down on your feelings. S'all good.

It'd help if you could stop interrupting them mid-making out. Remind you a bit less often of your surprise!three years of late hormones that were getting lost in the mail, like.)

"You should IM Rose..."

"Fuckno."

" _But since I already know you won't_ , let me put on my knitted pompous hat and my Freud moustache."

You startle a little amused huff out of him. You cross your legs at the knee, lean forward with your chin on your curled fingers, the picture of elegance if you dare say so.

"Might I possibly hint obliquely at the immutable fact that you are a dumb cockhead and also displacing your feelings of homolust for your Bro-dad figure because Gamzee's giraffe thing pings you in the yes daddy harder places."

You get a pillow in the face for that. You consider it worth it.

You pull the pillow on your lap. Dave looks torn between stealing it and beating you with it, and bro-fisting you. Bro-fisting wins. You oblige him, because you're about to kick him in the feelings again and hey, maybe he'll aim at your junk next.

"Anyway, dude... You say it's just because it's Gamzee, but..."

Dave frowns, looks away. He doesn't want to talk about it anymore, well tough luck.

"No, shut up and listen and then I'mma wander off into the sunset like a rad cowboy warrior shrink. He's the guy who's supposed to hate her, so you want to side with her to defend her pointy ass, that's normal. He's the guy who she's supposed to hate, so he's got to rub her hella wrong, makes sense he'd rub you kinda wrong too. Of course you're not gonna like him, but what makes you think you'd like anyone else she'd want as a kismesis? I mean, _John_ schooled me on quadrants so you know I understand less than jack shit, but I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to."

You get up, dump the pillow on his head, make a show of dusting your hand.

"So that excuse is bullshit and also stop entertaining prurient thoughts of your girlfriend giving her hate-virginity to the asshole who's _not_ too afraid she'll find his junk weird to actually show it to her, mmkay?"

You expected the pillow to smack you in the back of the head as you flashstep to the door, but since you went and unloaded with both barrels in his unsuspecting face you allow it to hit. You're a prince that way.

Luckily when you peek into the bedroom Karkat seems done talking on the phone, so you don't have to camp in the corridor like a poor evicted douche. The guy is sprawled on his back across the top of the pile, so his stomach is actually higher than both his head and hips. He lifts his head to glance at you, and then flops back down apathetically. What is wrong with these douchebags everywhere, they're supposed to be happy the Game is over and done with! There can't be a dozen curmudgeons in the party and you called dibs ten days ago.

"Are you seriously staring morosely at the ceiling, Vantas. Is that a thing you're doing."

"Fuck you," he answers, and you don't need to have known him ages to know it's really half-hearted. You were looking forward to colorful sick burns and descriptions of impossible tantric acts of carnal debauchery. Wow, emo now.

Okay not really. You skirt around the edge of the pile to get to the desk; there's a battered laptop there that Bro unloaded on Dave and you last week so you wouldn't have to share the desktop. There's a Gameboy too and an MP3 player. You swipe them both and dump them on Karkat's bared midriff.

"Ow -- the hell?" he protests, sitting up in a leap. The toys slide into his lap; he squeezes his legs to trap them before they get lost in the pile of crap purely by reflex.

"Play some Tetris at least, I don't know."

You get the laptop, tuck it under your arm, go back to your bed. You sit against the headboard and open it on your lap, pretending you can't see him. He glowers at you for a few seconds and then glares down at the MP3 player and starts fiddling with it.

"If the earbuds don't fit we've got actual professional DJ headphones, but you better fucking not damage them or I'll eat your soul with a spoon and a side of ice cream."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replies dryly, "just beside the place where I keep my fucks," and puts the earbuds in.

You proceed to spend a blissful half hour catching up on your fanmail and dicking around on the internet. The world shrinks to the width of your screen and you don't have to care about any assholes out here and their problems, or even about your own. You just let out a couple of silent chuckles at particularly gross dick jokes and flame a couple of tools on some forum or other. It's so normal you could cry of happy feels.

Over on the pile Karkat mutters something about Strider musical tastes sucking universally. You ignore him; the sad peasant doth not knowe of what he speaketh. He picks up the Gameboy. You go on to dead baby jokes and the latest photoshop meme. Gotta stay current.

You get so engrossed in it, you don't notice him moving until he clicks on your bedside lamp and then turns off the ceiling lamp. You blink at his back as he goes back to his pile and flops face up again, eyes open.

"Whoa, man, it's not even ten PM, don't you tell me you're going to sleep already."

"Not that it'd be any of your business if I was, but I'm not _sleeping_ , I'm just _bored_."

Yeah no, you're a Strider, and a teenage one to boot, you can recognize brooding at thirty paces.

What is it with your flatmates and wanting to drag you into that morass of troll hanky-panky shenanigans. Is there a prize for it? Maybe it's a pyramid scheme.

Karkat doesn't keep bitching. You do remember his memos from three years ago and it looked like he could bitch himself out into a coma and still keep bitching on automatic even while unconscious. Maybe he grew out of it. Maybe he really is too tired to deal with this shit, and is practicing the fine zen tradition of contemplating the universe in a bit of acoustic ceiling tile.

You bet he's thinking about his hump-free boyfriend and his ex-not-girlfriend doing the bone dance.

Yeah, that'd make anyone want to stare at the heavens and yell _why_. You know it's making you want to. Gangly loose-jointed beanpole and pocket-sized bag of knives, woo. That's hot.

Especially with hatesex and how predatorily they both _ooookay brain no_.

He turns on his side. Quiet sigh. Turns on his other side. _Is he cuddling an old shoe_. Oh, no, nose wrinkling, shoe rejected, thank fuck, that would have been too weird. Flop, on his back again. He's gonna catch a cold, the scrawny little asshole, the way his shirt rides up.

"Okay," you capitulate, "come up here."

You get stared at through a fringe of tangled dark hair.

"You're so bored all the fun is getting sucked out of the very walls. Shit be hitting critical soon, levels decreasing all across the countryside, soon even I might be _unfunny_ \--"

" _Soon?_ " he answers pointedly, which is pretty much just what you hoped for, because at least when he gets in a dig he looks a little more interested in life in general. He pushes himself into a sitting position. "I have watched your whole blighted timeline, _dude_ , and the last time you were funny was when your man-lusus gave you a smuppet to cuddle with at night."

You have to fight not to twitch. "Lies and slander."

"You gnawed on its nose."

... You don't think trolls nurse, so... yeah, oh god, no. If Bro didn't yank the smuppet out of your arms with all due horror you are going to need another fifty years of therapy. "Your dad know you lie like this, Vantas? I ought to warn him he doesn't tan your backside enough to bring forth honesty."

He snorts. "I'm sure Terezi --" his voice wavers. Fuck. "I'm sure she kept a video clip."

You sigh, and pat the mattress meaningfully. "Come on up, Vantas, you're a houseguest, it's your sacred duty to let me spam you with shit you don't care about and nod at polite intervals. Be like the rudest thing you could do in someone else's home not to."

You wait as he weighs his choices. You don't want to spend the night nagging him out of his funk, you're not his goddamn moirail. You made one offer, and that's it.

You have to admit, when he moves on his knees and shuffles to your bed, you're pretty surprised. You shift toward the wall, make him a space. The mattress isn't exactly king size. It's fine to watch vids, though, be a bit hard if he were farther away. You don't say a word, don't throw a glance as he sits gingerly beside you, reclines against the headboard like it might break under his weight. You just wait until he's done and then you move the laptop so one side of it rests on his knee.

You will never tell that to anyone else, but personally you find the warmth and the solid weight of a laptop oddly comforting, not to mention that almost subliminal vibration, that whirr of fans. If Rose were here she'd scoff at you about your subpar replacement for a proper cat, but cats suck and scratch and they're mean, and technology that does the same job is obviously superior, okay.

You accidentally end up on Youtube and accidentally queue up a series of adorable kitten antics. Accidentally.

They are guaranteed to amuse and/or soften the stoniest of hearts. Karkat mostly looks puzzled. "Why are we watching juvenile purrbeasts ride around on shellbeasts again?"

"It's... cute?" you venture. Okay, you might be mildly thrown. You expected at least one d'aww.

" _Animals_ are cute?" He makes a face, eyes you sideways like he suspects you of deviant leanings.

"Not in a sexy way for fuck's sake Vantas. Urgh."

"How even are they cute, they're not even person-shaped, you gogsucking furry."

You could bother dragging up old articles about how humans are wired to want to coo over small defenseless round fluffy things with a huge eyes-to-head ratio because babies and durr of course trolls wouldn't be pinged that way, but, yeah, nope, nerd is not a good look on you. You sigh. Okay, this one failed. You queue up random movie trailers next.

"Almost two sweeps in and humans are still so weird."

"Shut up and ogle Human Will Smith." You're pretty sure he likes that dude. You remember John laughing about it.

"... Why is he brown?"

" _Jegusfuck_." He frowns at you in puzzlement, lips pursed in a way too serious little pout. "It's just a skin color okay. Like how Jade and Jake are hella tan, well this fine dude is even more tan. It's not Maybelline." Karkat blinks. "He was born like that. Argh."

"Why are you twitching about it?"

"... Nooo nonono I am not explaining races and racism to you."

Adorably Puzzled Frowns do not make you want this conversation a iota more. "But he's a human too, right? That's the same race? Is it like land trolls and sea dwellers?"

You facepalm. Also whine, a little bit. "Argh, where to even start--"

Karkat's lips are pinched up. You throw him a suddenly suspicious look. He lets himself smirk, just a bit at the corner. "Kidding. Dad explained already. Blah blah color-based prejudice, where did I hear of that before, I wonder, humans sure are original."

You give him a jaundiced look from the side of your shades. "I ought to queue up the best worst of Nic Cage."

His smirk widens a little bit. "You won't."

"Oh, really? That's a dangerous risk you're taking there, playing with fire and all."

"You won't. It'd be a double KO."

You stare, eyes narrowed the tiniest little bit. "Don't go underestimating the sheer power of spite, now."

"I'm not. I'm also not underestimating the devastation Cage's hoofbeast face would lay on your ocular globes."

"Pff. My ocular globes are made of sheer diamond, nothing can scratch that shit."

"Save for Nic Cage."

"... Save for Nic Cage," you capitulate. He chuckles quietly.

It isn't even true, years of exposure have left you hardened, and besides you enjoy suckiness. He's just cuter when he smiles.

Not a lot of boys are cute, in your opinion, but so long as he isn't scowling like the dourest little raincloud Vantas manages decently well. It's the pointy little chin and the eyelashes.

And the bed hair.

And the stretched out across his pile with flat belly offered thing. Yeah. That thing.

You add some more random vids to your queue, let him figure out the track pad and add his own, whenever he sees an interesting one, and you enjoy the warmth of the laptop across both your laps, the warmth of his leg almost touching yours.

"I'm going to fall asleep here if I don't pay attention," he says, six or seven trailers later, gazing at the screen with soot-gray eyelids heavy, with colors dancing across the bridge of his nose.

"I don't mind," you reply, because you don't. You do pretty much the opposite of mind. Not because he'd probably end up wrapped around you again and you might get a chance to get your sleaze on, but because it's... you might have missed that, some, since the end of the game, John's rough hair ruffles, Jade's hugs, Nannasprite's headpats and the Consorts butting your sprite tail with their heads in clumsy affection and holding hands and all that cuddly shit. Striders are not a touchy-feely lot.

You don't know if it's random or if he hears something a bit too sincere in your voice, but he turns his head to look at you, hands laced together on his belly with all dainty claws showing, reclined almost lazily, almost relaxed.

Your shoulders aren't touching, but it's a question of inches -- to be precise, one, singular inch, if even that much. If you let your foot rotate outwards it would hook his -- tuck all nice and ticklish under his arch; short legs are short. You wonder if you really want to, if you should. Seems tempting but the fallout...

He quirks an eyebrow. "... What?"

"Wanna make out?"

Karkat stares, body still. You don't make a move to secure the laptop, though you expect it to go flying any second now.

His lips move, wordless, through a couple of aborted lines that you can guess at. " _Haha, utterly hilarious -- not._ " " _You **are** joking, right?_" " _... right?_ "

He wets his lips and you look, you can't not, and you don't know if he can see your eyes because shades but the tilt of your head seems to be clear enough.

"... Why?"

Damn it. That's right, he's a goddamn romantic. "You're cute, it'd be a nice pastime, why not?" you reply, valiantly resisting the urge to rub the bridge of your nose. If this devolves into a psychoanalysis session you are so gone. Fuck, you didn't even get any sloppy makeouts before your stupid impulse decision caught up at a dead run for a flying tackle. "If you're not interested it's fi--"

"Okay."

"--ne." Blink. "Uh."

Wow shit okay, suddenly you're not all comfortably and languidly interested, you are interested _right now_. Be smooth, Strider, _be smooth_ , not asking if he really means it, that's just too lame and a good way to change his mind -- fuck, what next, what did you do with Jade oh right she was the one who jumped you.

He's still waiting for an answer, pretend-casual, hands fisted on his lap.

"Okay," you say. "Cool."

You hesitate for one second, and then you take off your shades. You were planning for raw animal magnetism and cooch-wetting self-confidence when your eyes met but your hand twitches a little and you almost poke yourself in the eye with an earpiece. He shakes with a single nervous giggle-snorting noise that has you pinching your lips lest you reproduce it.

He leans in first (hey! foul!) and pecks your lips, a little off-center. You want to grab on but your shades, what are you supposed to do with them, you'll break them if you leave them on the mattress.

Cue awkward.

"Argh. And here on the list of ridiculously regrettable things I did not expect to do today we have --"

"Shh." You lean in and kiss him back.

It works. You feel like a king. A king with a painfully craned neck who's about to lose his balance because leaning on his hand will break the fuck out of his shades, and then Karkat will think you're trying to pounce him and you'll both fall on the floor. Head trauma for everyone. _Wow_ , they'll say, as tales of your prowess spread far and wide, _you sure know how to show someone a good time_.

The kiss stays chaste for a while; shoulder to shoulder, lips moving slow, no tongue. His hand bumps against the outside of your thigh; you take it. You hope you don't forget your shades lying abandoned between your hip and his, awesome if you sat on them oh hell your brain won't stop. No, shut up brain, so not the time for a word diarrhea. You shuffle a little closer, turn your upper body more toward him. This is not comfortable one bit, and then the laptop starts sliding and you both tear your hands free to grab for it.

"Welp. Uh. Just, could you close it, put it against the wall?"

Karkat nods without a word, not looking at you, eyelashes lowered. For half a second you're thinking that he didn't like it and aw fuck, but no, no, he's _flustered_.

You watch as he twists his upper body over the edge of the bed, the way his shirt rides up when he stretches down. You pretend your hand is suddenly on his waist so you can make sure he doesn't lose his balance and fall over. He jumps a little bit.

You rub your thumb against warm, soft skin, back and forth. He stays down there an endless second -- too long to be natural -- before sitting back up.

Stare-off.

And then he's rolling to his knees with great determination and they're kind of bracketing your thigh, oh hey. He's straddling you. You have a warm, compact body sitting on your knee. You're pretty alright with that turn of events. You reach for his shoulder, whoops almost sat your ass on your shades, fuck. You huff in frustration and drop them over the edge of the bed, fuck that noise, they're not gonna break for so little. You don't even look at them.

His hands are on your shoulders, his claws prickle you through your t-shirt. Oh. Yes. Yes, okay.

He leans in, pauses. You make a little groan of frustration and fist your hand in his collar; you stop yourself before you haul him the rest of the distance in, unsure of how well he'll take it. You open your hand, smooth it open-palmed on his chest, fingertips over sharply defined collarbones.

His forehead touches yours and you stare into each other's eyes and yes blahblah romantic as fuck and (it's not making your stomach flip weird to have all that anticipation building, that weird, intense moment of intimacy that you don't understand) flowery gestures don't turn your crank, okay, so you slide your arm around the back of his neck and haul him in for a kiss with a little more teeth. Your tongue teases at the corner of his lips. Once his arms have wound themselves around your shoulders (he groans, all quiet and shivery) you allow your own hand to wander downwards along his spine.

He breaks the kiss. "Wait, wait. I -- before we continue I think we should talk about our expectations--

You groan. "Oh for the love of God. Don't you pull a Kankri on me--"

He stiffens, offended. He looks like an angry teenage kitten. His claws prickle in deeper. Ngh. "It's not pulling a fucking Kankri to want to know what in the Mothergrub's putrid digestion sac you expect! Because if you _think_ we're having _sex_ \--"

You scoff. Your lips are kind of quirking up of their own volition. Why are you softening like that, it makes no sense. "Of course not, numbnuts, you think I give it up on the first date?"

"...Well. Good." He slumps against you, deflating, and now you have a lapful of pretty troll-boy. Ngh. He's breathing on your neck. Double ngh.

Well, if he's close to your neck, you're close to his. "Woe," you purr against the delicate shell of his ear, "today we shall go bucketless."

Then you nip. It cuts down on outraged grumbling pretty well. It doesn't prevent him from headbutting you in the shoulder, but you don't think you'll do more than bruise a bit from it, so whatever.

Oh hey a horn. You crane your neck a bit and drop a kiss on it, because it's there and, okay, you might have been a little curious but you never had an excuse to go up to a troll and touch before. It feels like a smoothed-soft river stone, one that's been left in the sun. Karkat lifts his head a bit to stare at you like you're the biggest dumbass in existence.

"If you had any idea how gross you are," he says. He doesn't get off your lap, mixed signals there. You start drawing little circles on his side over his waistband.

"What, horns are actually excretory organs?"

Bam, slap to the head, though it makes your hair fly more than it actually impacts with your skull. Even in the low yellow light of the bedside lamp you can see him flushing. "No, dumbass, not the horns!"

"So the... _bucketless_ thing?"

He stares.

You waggle your eyebrows, face otherwise a perfect impassive mask.

He splutters at you for another five seconds, and then he starts laughing. Bingo.

"Stupidest -- lamest -- most ridiculous human --"

It feels _really_ good when he's laughing in your lap. Wowza. Plus one thing you have learned from dating Jade was that the more you made her laugh, the more likely she was to go forth with the happy fondling. You make your voice ridiculously low and gravelly. "Wanna let me touch your butt, now, I bet."

He snickers against your temple; it's a surprisingly nice sound, low and a little veiled, and at point blank range it seems to have bought first class tickets on the Crotch Express. "Oh you bet I want you to, you ludicrous asswaffle. Ravish me now, you humongous stallion you."

"You could stand to sound a little less doubtful," you complain -- you _think_ mildly, though considering how distracting your crotch is at the moment it's a bit hard to judge if you have nailed it. "I totally could if I wanted to, only then you'd have to marry me to wash away my dishonor and then we'd have to agree on where to raise the grubs. Oh, I want at least three, but you better mammal-carry your fair share because my girlish figure won't mmmph."

Oh hey tongue in your mouth. You are pretty alright with this shocking new development.

You wrap your arm around his waist, tilt your head, kiss back. He's a little clumsy, cautious around your teeth and when you brush the tip of your tongue against his you get why. They're not razor-sharp though, just pointy like every single one is an eyetooth, so long as he doesn't clamp down you can handle them. You make a little pleased hum in his mouth, eyes closed. His tongue tickles your palate and you smile against his mouth. You're breathing together, taking in the same air, and it's strange and nice and making you warm pretty far down.

The kiss grows wetter, more confident, but out of some unspoken agreement you don't speed it up, you let it stay slow and thorough. You don't want to push too far too fast, anyway, you don't want to scare him off by fucking his mouth with your tongue, good way to end it too early and with no chance of a repeat performance.

His hands are in your hair. He seems to like it, he keeps combing in close to your skull and then letting the strands slide between his fingers, again and again and again until you want to purr, until you are purring, until some ghost part of you that the Game tore off on the way out wants to croon and preen him back.

You miss your wings so badly you can barely breathe.

He breaks the kiss, lips wet, downturned in a baffled frown. "Byrd?"

"Shit -- give me a minute." You burrow against his shoulder so he won't see your face, eyes closed tight. Shit. Now that's embarrassing.

"If I have _inadvertently triggered you_ I swear to fuck I will staple my bulge to my forehead somehow and roll my way down your preposterous number of stairs until I die or one of your neighbors mercifully shoots me. Don't think I could stand knowing I'm growing up to be _Kankri_."

You crack up. "T-trigger warning," you say through your laughter, "misuse of bulges, abuse of innocent staircases--"

You both go pffff together. It's a ridiculously long time before enough breath is regained that you can afford to only breathe through your noses for some mouth to mouth action.

You didn't think Karkat had much of a sense of humor. 'Perpetually angry' was the sense you had of him, maybe 'wordily sarcastic' -- but 'funny' and 'willing to have fun,' that's unexpected. The part of your brain that isn't drenched in hormones suspects he might be less funny if the aforementioned hormone drenching wasn't concerning like ninety percent of your thought processes right now.

But, as you have just said, that part of your brain is like ten percent tops, and therefore you officially do not care.

Things go back to slow and lazy and thorough; you recline against the headboard, he leans against your chest. You sigh under the weight of him, his compact, wiry body. He's a bit smaller than you are but there's tight corded muscle everywhere, from what you can guess through a shirt and your hand traveling up and down his back in wide arcs. Bit unexpected, Jade was muscled too but padded all over, her skin was softer. You liked that, but it doesn't mean Karkat doesn't feel nice.

Just maybe likely to crush you sooner. You shift under him to settle his weight; his mouth slides from yours to your shoulder, dampening the sleeve of your t-shirt.

"I'm killing my back right here," he says eventually, and you snort out a little laugh.

"I was about to say the same thing. Lay down?"

He bites his lip, propped up on his hands, his body pressed against yours in a spine-bending arc, a little off-center so his crotch doesn't press into yours. Instead you get hipbone, nicely uncomfortable and you don't even mind somehow. His fangs are ridiculously un-scary.

"... Still no sex."

"Sure, okay."

You'd agree to him tap-dancing on your beef thermometer right now.

When he goes to dismount on the left side, though, you catch his elbow, guide him against the wall instead. He tenses a little, eyebrows furrowing. You look away, wave your stump wordlessly.

"-- Oh. Right. Yeah."

"You don't have some weird troll aversion at getting stuck with the wall side, do you? 'cause we could try laying down upside-down in the bed but--"

"Shut up, nookmunch." He wriggles down a little and then flops down decisively, his back against the wall. And then he glares up at you.

God _damn_ does he look nice in here. Curled up against your hip, lying down in your bed, hair tousled and cheeks hot... it's pretty sexy, okay, so when you lay down in turn you make damn sure your hips aren't touching. He glances down, confused for a fraction of second before uncomfortable understanding bursts on his face.

"Uh -- how much are you...?"

"Dude, if you're not going to put your hands on it I'd rather avoid going into details about the state of my yogurt hose."

"... _Your what_ ," he replies flatly. You make sure your face is expressionless. You can feel how pink your cheeks have gotten, though.

"I don't usually deconstruct my metaphors but special offer, just for you, babe, today Professor Strider will school you at great length on--"

"Let's talk about your disturbing lack of horns instead. Or, uh, how hard you'd like me to use my nails, because your skin is so weak and papery and you guys really don't heal fast and--"

Yeah, you totally want to talk about how shivery-hng it makes you to get scratched. "How about we don't talk at all."

You tangle your legs together. (Only from mid-thigh down, sob.) His hand curls over your hip, smoothes its way up, ruffling up your shirt, cautiously ventures onto bare skin. You're kissing, of course you're kissing, it comes easily now. You cup your hand over his small round-tipped horn, covering it entirely, and he shivers.

"Thought you didn't really feel it?" you inquire in between two languid kisses.

"Mnh. Don't, much. S'more like..."

He stops touching your hip and his hand rises to cover your eyes. The  world is dark; you're surrounded in him. It's silly to be nervous, and yet. "... Ah."

"Feel -- can feel -- vibrations, big things, footsteps, but when your hands -- I can only feel you."

"Ah," you say again, and you roll closer, half on top of him, burrowing him between you and the mattress and the wall, he is caught here and you just, you want to cover his horns again, his eyes, you want to cover his body with yours.

The impulse is startling enough that you don't even need the warning prickle of claws against the back of your neck; you're already pushing off, falling back onto your lamed side, and his claws scratch you a little. You don't mind.

Karkat gives a long, grouchy growl, and leans in to nip your chin. Ow.

"Sorry," you say, meek as you can, which granted isn't much. "I was just overwhelmed by your tiny horns' insane levels of sex appeal." He glares. You purse your lips. "I want to elope with your horns, they are unreasonably charming, why, the seductresses, we ought to find you a hat to cover their lewd cuten _ow ow ow._ "

He has latched onto your ear. With teeth. He is not letting go. You smooth your hand down his side as soothingly as you can.

"Sorry -- sir -- your majesty -- ow, ow -- my word on it, I won't do it again --"

"You had _better_ not," he says, scowling, but then he drops a quick kiss on your closed mouth.

"Woohoo mixed signals -- ow."

You try to look contrite. It's not one you have much practice at.

He sighs, eyes closing, and settles down next to you, his arm draped around your waist. You mirror him. You're a bit put out that he seems to want to take a break -- maybe stop entirely? maybe you just turned him right off with that stupid impulsive stunt, or maybe he was trying to see if he was into it but he's just not -- but nagging until he changes his mind is just lame. You're not that desperate to get off.

(At least you don't want to look it. Fff. Down, pants beast.)

"So." You school your voice into mild indifference somehow. "Shirtlesssness some other day, then?"

He opens his eyes then and you can see he's caught between rueful and relieved. "Yeah. Sorry. It was -- it was pretty nice, I just..." A grimace. "My brain won't stop. Kind of killing the mood."

Argh. Well, at least it's doing a decent job of putting your boner back to sleep. It'd kinda suck if you kept working yourself up at this point.

Bluh. You weigh your choices. Meddle, don't meddle... you so do not want to get involved, but it'd be kind of callous to suck face with a guy and then be all _welp shut your trap about your little problems I don't care_.

Not that he's offering. Maybe it's okay if you don't make even a token effort...

"... Wanna. You know. Talk about it?"

He stares at you, and then -- out of all possible responses -- he represses a smile, almost a smirk. "You look like someone handed you a dead and putrefying stinkbeast. Don't go and give yourself a feelings hernia now."

You pout. Uh, make that, make a manly, not-childish grimace. Yeah, that's what you do. "Shut up, I was just trying to gain considerate points to unlock your topless level."

He kicks your ankle, half-heartedly.

"Thanks for the generous offer, I'll appreciate it in the spirit in which it was intended." Deflating, he stares down at your collarbone, though you doubt he's actually seeing it (which is a shame, it's a pretty hot collarbone if you may say so.) "But... wow, would that feel like pale cheating right now."

"I could put my hand on your nubile buttock as you blather on. That'd totally make it not pale. I know because of my learnings."

"Uh huh. Tell me, who gave you the basics of troll relationships again? Because it wasn't me, and your ideas aren't garbled out of all recognition enough for it to be Gamzee, and if you learned from Terezi you learned it through Dave as a proxy and he'd have trolled you as a matter of course... Kanaya perhaps? Rose?"

The sardonic look on his face says he can guess who it really was. You give in. "Yeah okay, it was John."

"I suggest you use your troll diploma to wipe with, that's about the most exalted use it can pretend to."

For a moment you're tempted to make a schooling crack, _sensei should keep me after class_ kind of thing, but either Karkat won't get it -- you have no idea how their education system works so maybe they don't have the same porn of it -- or he'll think you're trying to nag him into show-and-telling you what he's got down his pants. Def. a bad idea right now.

With a little sigh you let it go. You regretfully take your hand off his side to grab for a pillow, tuck it under your head. "Want one?"

He pauses in the middle of reaching out for the pillow you're holding out to him, eyes you, chewing on his lip. "So... I'm crashing here a second time, then. Do humans do this kind of thing a lot, because--"

"You sleep with your juggalo, dude," you point out.

He flinches, looks away. "Uh, yeah, and it's _a date activity_ , it's not supposed to happen every single day. Then again you guys routinely share hives, what the fuck do I know. I think you assholes are contaminating me, too, because fuck if I'm not turning into a codependent nookdribbling spongefuck who really needs to kick the addiction to the curb. It's not _normal_ to always be together with--"

"The hand on buttock offer is still open, just so you know."

He flushes, dusky-dark on soot skin, and then he snatches the second pillow from your hand and tucks it under his hips busily. You give a slow blink.

"How the heck can you even sleep like that, dude, I don't get it." You roll on your back, tuck your arm behind your head. "Don't you get achy everywhere? Knotted muscles? Cricks in your neck?"

He huffs, though at least he meets your eyes again. "How can you sleep all flat and loose on too-soft stuff and not feel like you're becoming one with the jelly?"

... _Aliens_.

You turn off the bedside lamp, and make a note to look for more occasions to advance the general xenobio knowledge on Earth, now that you have a potential hands-on study option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, by the way. 
> 
> [Illustration for Chapter 3.](http://askerian.deviantart.com/art/Davekat-late-at-night-337060618)


	5. 5 - Day 11

You wake up because there's someone staring at you and also you can't breathe.

If the staring you awake thing happens three times in a row you swear you will flip a nun ass over rosary. For now you just force your eyes open into the gloomy room and try to figure out who left an elephant parked over your ribs.

Pat. Pat.

You recognize that (supple, smooth, bare) thigh. Okay, how the fuck did Karkat end up face up and ass across your stomach, his legs have to be dangling over the edge of the bed and considering where the wall is his neck is probably made of origami, this is ridiculous.

He's still breathing all soft and sleepingly, though, so you keep squinting.

Huh, there's a gargoyle perched on your footboard.

Where the fuck is your sword. Sword now. You need your fucking sword _oh hey antelope horns_ _and Cthulhu hair._

Wonder who that could be!

Nope, still feels like your need your goddamn sword.

"Can I help you, bro?" you ask. You're getting used to the green ambient light from the alarm clock, you think you can see a gleaming bit where his eyes should be. His horns tilt a bit to the side and his eyes flash all greenyellowwhite like a cat staring down a coming car. Nice reminder that he's probably seeing you a lot better than you're seeing him, woohoo xeno.

(You might feel rather annoyed at it right now, but actually it _is_ pretty interesting. Once again you wish you had some troll body parts in jars for your collection of awesome creepy things You'll be interested another day, though.)

"Why'd a motherfucker need any help from the likes of you, _bro_."

The things he is _doing_ with his voicebox, the bass wobble and the almost subliminal nails-on-chalkboard scratches... The hair on your forearm and on the back of your neck prickles up.

"I'm not to be wanting to get my fucking _bother_ on, anyway, not when you motherfuckers are sleeping all to safe and snug and _nice_ , not me. Not _motherfucking_ me."

"Whoa there, you sure you're supposed to hateflirt that hard so soon after you got your hatemack on? Hold your horses, stallion. Terezi hates you enough already."

You knew you should have shut your mouth pretty much as the words started coming out, but having good judgment and actually using it are two pretty different things. Yours is still in mint condition, you could make a fortune off a collector somewhere.

You start discreetly bouncing your stomach to get Karkat to wake up. He's heavy -- worse, he's limp, all you manage is to strain your abdominal muscles, and then you feel even more squashed.

"Seriously, what crawled up your ass and died? I hope not Pyrope's bulge, she's gonna need it to deflower my clonebro some day hopefully soon and necrotic tentacles are way more up Rose's alley than either of ours." Wow, you're in full on babble mode. Mostly because he's still not saying anything, damn it, when is he going to tell you what he wants and then hopefully wander off -- "By alley I was referring to her vagina in case that wasn't clear, because the day just isn't going well enough until we've had a slip of the tongue in unfortunate Freudian directions in this joint and _what the fuck do you want?_ "

You broke down and started sounding strained there in the end but he leaves you to marinate some more before he bothers answering. "Why'd I have to be wanting anything? Just getting my perch on. _Watching_. Sweetest motherfucking thing my ganderbulbs ever got their gaze on."

You blink, long and slow. "Okay, that sure sounded like you're jealous. Also passive-aggressive and a whiny fuck, but mostly jealous. What for, 'cause Vantas decided to find himself another bedwarmer rather than freeze to death waiting for your bony ass?"

That... came out a little sharp. You do _not_ want to get involved, but last evening you got to deal with emo moping and cockblocking, and he got to deal with Pyrope's party blower tongue down his creepy clown throat.

Which was apparently good for him. Takes all kinds.

Gamzee is now rattling. It's not... organic enough to be called a growl, somehow, it's a weird click-chittering noise that seems to wrap around the base of your skull and burrow. Your hand starts feeling along the headboard for your sword.

One of Karkat's hands flips and thwaps you knuckles-first in the collarbone. Ow. When you look down at him, you catch another cat-flash of eyes. Thank fuck. It's his job to calm the juggalo's tits, time he earned his keep around here holy fuck.

"Gamzee."

No threat, fancy or otherwise. Not even any anger, really. Just... flat, almost casual, _Gamzee_.

Slow and deliberate, controlled, Karkat pushes his ass off you, sits up against the wall, though his legs are still bent across your body, heels on the other side of your waist. He looks toward the headboard.

"Have you had a good night?"

You must be seeing things, poor dark-blind human, because you almost think the way those longass horns twitched meant _flinch_. You push yourself toward the headboard some so you can sit up.

"Gamzee."

"... Looks to me like you did, too, bro, look at that, your support struts don't want to get their detangling on."

Aw, motherfuck. You can't figure out if Gamzee sounds calmly, crazily homicidal, or guilty (heartbroken? yeah right;) he keeps wavering between the two. Either way is not of the good.

Controlled Karkat? Is bad news. Turns out. Surprise, you know. "I can not," he starts, slow and casual, "figure out how you even think you have any grounds at all to open your noise trap about what I did with my night."

Okay, that was definitely a flinch, and also cheap Ikea bed boards splintering quietly under claws.

Also they're definitely going to have their domestic argument right here on top of you. Not uncomfortable at all. "Whoa, okay, guys, maybe we don't want to wake up Dave with that discussion--"

" _Shut your motherfucking mouth._ "

... Okay, no. Your hand closes on the handle of your katana.

"Don't you tell him to shut up!" Karkat snarls back, higher pitched, less coldly threatening and more incandescent with rage. "Don't you tell anyone to shut up, _you_ shut up! What the fuck is even your problem?! How do you figure you're allowed--"

"I don't motherfucking _mind_ when you get pale for the entire fucking world!" Gamzee snarls back, and he looms, fuck, he does have the higher ground. You need off your bed right the fuck now. "Because that is who you are all down to the shining core of you, but when they get their pale on right the fuck back--"

You have a foot on the floor and you're about to lunge, only Karkat moves first.

_Slap._

Gamzee loses his balance and jumps off the bed; the pile rustles, things cracks. You don't think he landed wrong, wouldn't be so lucky. You get up and slap your hand on the light switch. Wince; too much light, but you couldn't have put your shades on without putting your weapon down and yeah, nope. Gamzee is in a crouch on the pile's slope, and Dave sits in his bed with his hair a royal mess and his eyebrows furrowing owlishly.

"Okay, guys, who was the moron who thought ass o'clock was the perfect time for that shit," he grouches. Neither of the trolls acknowledge him. You see him noting the sword in your hand and he frowns, slides toward his own weapon, though he doesn't grab it yet.

Gamzee and Karkat only have eyes for each other.

"Best friend--"

"I can not--"

"--you can't, you're--"

"--fucking _believe_ \--"

"--mine, you and me--"

"--the fucking gall--"

"--me and you--"

"--accuse me of, of _cheating!_ \--"

"--you can't leave me!"

Silence. Karkat is panting, teeth bared, eyes red all the way through, standing in a battle stance on your mattress; Gamzee cowers on the pile, scratched all over and a black eye on him that you don't think Karkat gave him. A CD case dies a splintery death in his blindly clenching hand.

Gamzee shakes his head like a drunk man and his voice rises again, seesawing between plaintive and unhinged. "You can't, bro, you _motherfucking can't_ , we're destiny, hatched for each other, we were--"

"Stop." Karkat straightens up, still breathing too fast. "You are not having an attack of murder in here just so I can shoosh your ass and you can pretend all is well once _fucking_ again. You're going to calm your own damn tits--"

" _No!_ "

He starts rising from his crouch like some terrifying (terrified) lanky monster of darkness. Karkat talks right over him. " _You're going to calm your own damn tits today_ and we'll fucking jam later!"

Deep breath.

"Okay? Later. I can't fucking deal with you right now, I -- just. Later."

He bumps into your shoulder on his way out, and you don't think he even notices. You look at the door slamming closed behind him, and then back to Gamzee, whose face is slack and eyes vague in a way you do not like much. The guy's not right in the head, and Karkat might believe leaving you two alone with him is not going to explode into guts and gristle but he might not be the most astute judge of that right now.

Sword now in hand, Dave is measuring angles and checking what kind of footing the pile might offer. You decide to do your part for the war effort by keeping murderclown's attention on you, and (conveniently) his back to Dave for ease of stabbing.

"Earth to Makara."

Slowly, his eyes shift until he's staring at you. His eyelids hang low, almost sleepy, but the red-orangey whites are just not a good look on him. Clashes with the plum irises.

"Alright, all conclusions have been thoroughly jumped, it's a tackle party and where'd the football even get to, no one fucking knows." Sigh. You place your hand on your hip, pointedly. "Can I say my piece now? Without you inserting subtext like you're Rose and two random actor dudes have accidentally pissed in neighboring urinals?"

"Sure, cripplebro," he says, throat scratchy like he spent the night howling it up at an ICP concert with his juggalo brethren. You bristle, even though you know better than to give him the pleasure. You think he looks a bit too coldly satisfied with that. "Go right the fuck ahead. Get your explanation on about the miracles of human jams that make it so's it ain't pale as fine-ass snow."

You twitch. Gamzee throws a pointed look over his shoulder.

"Like how those jams you motherfuckers got up to on the meteor weren't you leading him the fuck on--"

Dave hisses in annoyance. "Fuck's sake, just because we had some awkward private conversation about things that were -- get that -- _private_ , it doesn't mean it was anything but friendly discussion! You trolls fucking suck, can't even be vaguely decent to a guy without planning to tie the knot. I've never been pale or black or candy-stripped for Karkat in my _life_ , okay?"

 _Good_ , you think, and then you bury it, because it's so not the time to get resentful at the one guy in the room who's on the side of not getting Byrd gored for cheating.

"How would you know if you were, motherfucker. _How would you motherfucking know_. You got no words for it, all snipped out of your blasphemous, ugly tongue, though the feelings are still hiding muddled in there. Right fucking here, spilling over every fucking thing, getting their greedy grasp on what's fucking mine."

You sigh. You roll your eyes. "Maybe we can, and maybe we can't, but this one? It was most definitely the very incarnation of not."

You wait until he's staring at you again, and then you say, "'Cause I put my tongue in his mouth."

Gamzee blinks first.

"Now, mister Makara, school me on how that's any of your business, since from what I got from observing today it's not his business where you put your own tongue, but surely I understood that wrong, I'm just a silly alien and all! And then I can give you a play by play of where my hand went and whether he's a biter. Fair?"

He's still staring at you.

"Okay, bro, you go first. School away. I'm all ears."

You don't know what he would have responded, because the door creaks open behind you. You don't know whether to hope Karkat came back to deal with his shitty moirail. In any case you'd be disappointed; it's Dirk. He stares at the three of you in turn, face blank, shades on.

"Yo, what's up, Byrd I'm trading your bed for my couch, have fun. Orders from above. Gamzee, Bro tells me to tell you that if you don't feel up to sleeping in the same room as Dave tonight there's a space for you in his closet, graciously offered and free of charges."

It's a threat, as blandly voiced as it is. You're pretty sure Bro and Dirk decided together, or would have decided the same thing anyway no matter who had the idea first, but it's more final coming from Bro because the trolls are all nervous as fuck around him for god knows what reason. Gamzee is about as likely to take him up on the offer of sleeping in his room as he is of sticking a kitchen knife up his alien mangina.

Then again, he's apparently black-dating Terezi. Who knows.

  
You bite down on the back of your sword to keep holding it elegantly and pirately (fuck off that shit's swag and you're just _not_ putting it down) and fumble your shades on, and then when he hasn't taken the occasion to attack you take the sword back in hand and stroll out.

Bro is standing in the doorway to his room, arms crossed, leaning on the doorjamb. He sees you coming and you can see him checking you out, a quick glance from toes to head. You give a minimal shrug; you're fine, really. He nods back and disappears back in his room.

You turn right, into the living room, to find the trapdoor open and Terezi peering down, and you can bet your ass she only didn't come charging in because Bro was out and standing in her way. Good; this would not have made that clusterfuck worse at all.

"Byrd? What happened?"

"Jeeze, I fucking wonder." You don't see Karkat anywhere. Probably on the roof. The only other place to be alone in here would be the bathroom, if he didn't mind that he can't even turn around without breaking an elbow on the toilet. "I'm not giving you a situation update, Pyrope, I am so sick of that teenage bullshit, just ask Dave tomorrow."

She stares at you, black lips pursed. You stare back, letting yourself frown. You're serious. Enough. Just... enough.

For once she doesn't push. She just bites her lip and asks, "Is Dave okay?"

Depending on what she's talking about, but nope, the relationship counselor's office is motherfucking _closed for business_. He's not bleeding, good enough for this hour of the night. "Yeah, sure. G'night."

You stroll away to the couch before she can call you back.

\--

A half hour later you still haven't fallen back to sleep. You've been listening to noise from the bedroom -- nothing -- and trying to find a comfortable position -- ain't one to be had -- and wondering halfheartedly if you shouldn't jump on the chance to rub one off without waking up your roommates -- but the thought of Terezi sniffing out what you're up to from all the way over there through a trapdoor would kill it even if your mood wasn't haunting the dark and grouchy plains of Sulkistan.

The big DVD reader display flashes 4:44 at you. You give up.

Some fresh city air will help. Yeah.

You trip over no Karkat on the staircase, and you haven't turned on the light deliberately in case of weird stains so you just ghost right up. After the darkness inside, the billboards and weird orangey clouds are almost too much light, even if objectively you're still not seeing a lot more than jack shit. There's a cool little breeze up here that makes you shiver in your t-shirt, but even so it's not what you'd call cold.

You stick your hand in your pocket and wander your way to the low wall that's supposed to keep you from becoming street pizza on the busy avenue. Though at this hour the faint roar of cars isn't exactly common. You lean your hip on it, gaze down. Flickering neon, some poor assholes actually going to work, a lone, exhausted prostitute.

There's a dark shape huddled at the far corner of the roof, mirroring you -- chest propped up on the wall, looking down at the streets below. You're not sure you want to talk yet. At all.

You catch him glancing at you, and you sigh and push away from the wall and go, shoulders loose, as slow as you can get away with. Gives him plenty of time to stiffen, abscond, whatever. He doesn't; just turns his head back down toward the street. You make sure to scrape your feet, make some noise as you reach him.

He's tracking the progress of some dude carting a fancy painting's frame on his shoulder (sans painting ??? ) and not saying a thing, so you do the same, prop your elbow and street-watch. From his corner you see more, another street; the intersection isn't all that busier but at this hour it's still something.

Vroom, goes a truck down there. In an apartment somewhere close by a dog is barking.

He's tense, refusing to look at you. He wants to talk about it about as much as you do. The second you offer he's going to chew your throat out.

The silence is getting boring, though, and you're remembering that your eyes are gritty.

"... Make out?"

"I will bite you in the face."

You give a slow blink. "Well. Okay."

Karkat turns to look at you, then, suspicious and irritated. "Are you _blackflirting_?"

 _Trolls_. "Jegus no. I was saying okay, no making out. You're cute and all, dude, but you're not hot enough to rewrite mauling as sexy."

He snorts quietly, or maybe it's a tired sigh.

"Then again I don't know who would ever be that hot. Seriously counter to survival there."

You're wide open to a 'only because humans are lamesauce weaklings' comeback, but nothing comes. He just keeps staring down at the street.

"Going back to bed anytime soon?"

You know you're probably annoying him by trying to keep a conversation going, but he answers anyway. "No. I'm up now."

"Yay, sleep deprivation."

"Mnh." He shrugs. "Not like I'm not used to it."

You turn so the small of your back is pressed to the wall and you're gazing at the magnificence of the radio tower. "Protip: it's not something you're supposed to miss."

"Mnh."

Yeah okay never mind. Sighing to yourself, you push away from the wall.

"... Byrd?"

"Huh. Yeah?"

He's still not looking at you, he's staring ahead at the next building' roof. His gray face is all orangey from street lights. His shoulders are hunched.

"Why..."

You wait a few seconds, but for once he seems not to find his words. You turn back to him, hip leaning against the wall in lieu of missing hand. "Yeah?"

"Why are you here?"

You frown a little bit. "If you start giving me asshole reasons in your head we're going to have fucking words. I'm not just trying to get in your panties and if I get cockblocked I'm fucking off."

"I wasn't thinking that," he grouches back. You arch an eyebrow pointedly. "... Much. You Striders might be assholes, but not that kind, okay, I know." He sighs, rakes a hand through his hair, around a small round-tipped horn. You kind of want to fit your hand over it again, for a brief second. "Just..."

"You _can_ tell me never again, I won't keep nagging and nagging you like I'm some desperate douchebag and you're the only tail in town. Well, okay, you kind of _are_ the only tail in town, but still."

"That is so flattering," he replies, and there's -- finally -- an upsurge of snarky cynicism. "I am so flattered. Catch me before I swoon to my death there."

"Dude if you want me to flatter you, you're barking up the wrong tree. I've told you you're cute twice now, I'm not writing you poetry. Maybe a rap if you ever felt like giving head, but that's it."

He stares at you for a couple of seconds, and then he punches you in the arm, rolling his eyes. Ow. But at least he took it as the joke it was meant as, even if he didn't find it funny.

"Sure, if you want me to bite it off."

You crack a tiny smile. "We'll pass on that. Teeth are Misters Not Invited To This Party." Shit, what time is it now, you're so tired. You were tired earlier too, just not sleepy. Hopefully by the time you make it down the stairs you'll still feel it.

He doesn't say anything about you being really presumptuous about the potential for any future party; you choose to take that as a positive hint. Getting to make out with someone was about the one good thing that happened the whole week, even if it went a bit weird and petered out.

You are not blaming him for Gamzee, you are blaming Gamzee for Gamzee. You feel it's fair enough.

"Anyway Dirk has a pile of robot parts by the TV if you feel like napping some before morning." Because his other choices are the couch -- haha fuck him, no, it's narrow enough for one person, and besides you've woken up being stared at by a juggalo once already -- the bedroom with the guy he's avoiding plus two voyeurs to make that reunion super awkward, and your bro's closet. It's the robot pile or nada.

Karkat shrugs noncommittally. You doubt he'll even try to lay down at all. Oh well. You're not his nanny. "Go back to bed, Strider. I'll survive, really."

... he sounds so stupid lonely. "You better," you say, and fuck if it doesn't come out a bit awkward, "I don't want to know what we'll tell your dad if you don't. Kay, uh, goodnight."

You abscond before you can see his face, but you still hear him go "heh" behind you. You can just imagine the barely-there smile.

When you get back inside the apartment you are so ready to just crash face down on the couch, but the kitchen corner is lit with fridge-light. Dave is standing there, pulling out the bottle of apple juice.

"What the fuck are you doing not asleep," you both say together, inflections so close they merge, and you grimace and look away. You hate it when your brains run that close together.

You also hate it when your brain decides Dave had an excellent idea and _hell yeah apple juice_ , just the comfort drink you need before bed. You hold out your hand, curl your fingers grabbily at him. "Hand over the juice, bitch."

He takes the time to drink (straight from the bottle) before he does. You roll your eyes over your shades and drink, fuck his germs.

"I swear even in sleep that asshole juggalo exudes like this miasma of I'm gonna wake up in the night and cut your face off for a mask," he grouches as you drink another mouthful. "Plus how Dirk is still awake and probably won't sleep either and he's keeping me up staring at the ceiling. Bluh."

"Bluh," you commiserate. "Karkat's sulking up there like he thinks he's Batman on a crime holiday."

You hand him the bottle; he takes another sip, then closes it and puts it away. You turn away to leave, Bonding Moment completed.

"I am so glad He Who Shall Not Be Rapped bought that making out thing, though," Dave says from behind you as he drags himself to the door. "Be ginormous amounts of untenable if he didn't."

You do not turn around to face him. Boy are you not doing that. "Yeah," you say blandly, "glad he bought it too."

The corridor door opens and closes. You flop face down on the couch.

Face buried in the cushions, you tell yourself you're not pettily, selfishly satisfied that Dave apparently can't even conceive of you meaning it, your interest in putting your mouth on Karkat Vantas', because that means it's yours, just yours, and no one else's.


	6. 6: day eleven, second attempt

There are a lot of existential questions you get to ponder, being the divine-computer-generated split-timelined double of some guy who was (the double, not the guy) merged with a crow and a katana and an alien Gamebro FAQ database while that other guy went on to become a god. Such as:

Why are you standing in a parking lot.

Why are you in a parking lot _at the mall_.

The sun is shining through the pollution haze; it's still morning but the heat rises from the asphalt already; the truck will be boiling by the time you come back out. You gaze at it longingly and sensuously caress the thought that Bro might let you stay in it if you asked.

Alas that thought is frigid as fuck and basically throws its _how dare you even think me_ martini in your face.

Okay that metaphor got away from you a little.

What it boils down to is that by asking the question you are basically admitting that you're a total pussy. You are not asking it.

You're still barely halfway to the mall doors when you attract your first double-take. Bro accidentally on purpose steps on your foot. "Where's the camping gear shop again."

"What," you reply, "you think I go trekking every other day? Oh hey I need crampons to match my rappelling gear today, maybe in a nice spring green to offset my eyes." You bump into his side. Yeah you know you're not supposed to care about the looks you're getting. You're not, really, it's just bothersome.

It's cooler inside, and not too busy at this hour, not horribly so at least. You're kind of torn; it's by far not as crowded as a tiny little apartment full of Striders and trolls in the full bloom of a glorious quadrant clusterfuck.

On the other hand (haha), strangers everywhere.

You tell yourself they're oddly-shaped consorts.

It's warm outside so your shirt has short sleeves. A long, empty one flapping in the breeze would be too silly, but it means the stump shows. The scar is not a horrid raised scabby mess, it hasn't gone necrotic, it isn't joyfully discharging pus (oh, what Google can _teach_ you), it just ends oddly round with a little slightly-redder-than-your-skin, smooth scar. Yay for Sburb surgery. You should recommend them. You never worried about your wing healing in all those catastrophically wrong ways after Doctor Jack operated it off, it just bled for a while until it scabbed shut and after that it was done. You were more worried about your evisceratory stomach slice (which was to say not much at all because sprite, and _a Game sprite cannot be erased by such a negligible amount of damage_ and the pain felt so weirdly distant anyway...)

"Anything else you want while we're here, man?"

You ponder. Your feet keep going slap, slap, slap on the floor (apart from when they go schliiirrrp-flop when crossing a patch of oh-hey-someone-dropped-their-it-better-be-soda.) You eye them.

"I'm pretty rad with my chicken legs in camper chic, I know, but--" laces are pissing you off recently-- "I really want nice big kiddie shoes with the velcro ties, betcha I can rock them, soon all the kids will want some. Maybe in puke pink and radioactive green? With a nice pony on the side or like a Barbie, that'd be awesome."

"It's a shame you've got the biggest feet a princess was ever cursed with, cutie-pie," Bro says over his shoulder as he opens the way through a clump of people.

When you can walk side by side again he's by your stumpy half. You wonder if he meant to.

He does dodge into the nearest kids-and-teens shoe shop. You follow. No Velcro in your size; Bro's pointed comments make four salespeople squirm and look as guilty as if they were getting a lecture on checking their arm-having privileges; you make sure to look wobbly-lipped. You're a couple of assholes and it's hilarious.

But then a fifth salesgirl comes by and she's like 'let me show you a one-handed lace-tying trick', casual as you please, and you think by the way Bro's lips almost quirk up if he wasn't gayer than a Pride parade in New Orleans he'd totally ask her out right there on the spot. Shit's fit to make you blush.

(And the trick _works_ why the fuck did you not check the internets for any such tricks instead of moping. Oh right, because you're a whiny emo-lord.)

You buy three pretty expensive pairs of jogging shoes. Woo, laces. This is the best day.

Bro hip-checks you into a wall on the way out. You glower at him. You were so not bouncing, the shoes are springy okay.

Next stop, camping gear. You purse your lips as you consider the rows and rows of specialized gear. "I want a pink tent Bro can we have a pink tent."

"Sure you don't want a rainbow one? Oh hey that one comes in juggalo purple. We can always buy glitter at the arts and craft next door."

"Awesome. Let's."

You go about looking at the actual specs, like what kind of wind or rain the things will resist, if they'll catch on fire should someone smoke nearby, the number of people you can stuff in so long as they don't mind ending up knowing each other biblically well. Bro pulls a couple of the biggest off the racks, sticks them under his arms.

"By the way," he says without looking. You grunt an acknowledgement. "Situation update for last night please."

He actually pronounces it like he spelled it plz in his head. You're mildly impressed. You'd take being fully impressed over being asked to talk about that clusterfuck, but.

"Came back home with lil' me and all was chill and swell, and then suddenly rampage in the night. What the fuck happened there, dude?"

"Can I say 'nothing'."

"Sure. You're going back on foot."

Bluh. You trudge after him on your way to the inflatable mattresses. Not that the trolls will want them much, but Rose and her new mom-sis will, and you certainly fucking do.

"Terezi is hate-dating Clowny the Hell-Giraffe."

"Huh."

"And his lil' shouty boyfriend used to have a hatecrush on her and apparently Hardy didn't tell Laurel he was macking on her."

"Huh."

You give a bored shrug. "Cue drama. Can we change the topic now."

"Okay, bud. Since when do you like dong?"

"...Can we change the topic again."

Bro is laughing at you. It's a kind of Striderly laugh that doesn't involve any sound or facial movement, not even the merest shiver of shaking shoulders. He's totally laughing, the asshole. You kick him in the calf. He kicks back before yours has even landed. Ow.

"Denied. You were so horrified whenever you found my magazines, I'm rather fucking perplexed."

Can you perhaps gnaw off another limb to escape. Is that a thing you can please get to do. You pick up a couple of mattress boxes on the way to the checkout and tell yourself they're not big enough to hide yourself behind entirely anyway.

"That's because even the most homogay fag in the state would find your magazines brain-scarring, dude. I was twelve year old, I did not need to see borderline literal bears performing ye olde pony play. With draft-horse-sized dildos, I mean dude, you could have put _two_ fists up there, that's just, gross, no, I kept wondering if they'd need diapers afterwards, how do you ever close your asshole again after that _please dear lord don't tell me_."

He is _still_ laughing. (So is the cashier. Fuck your life.) "Gotcha. I've failed you and allowed you to become boringly vanilla."

"Be glad I didn't become a _monk_. Shit was that close to going critical." You huff. Your face is not pinkening around the shades. Nope. You neither feel it nor see it in the mirror above the cashier's station. Noppers. "... Anyway I still like girls fine, thanks. I'm a teenage guy, I'm allowed to explore shit. Advance Man's understanding of alien mysteries, 'cause Dave ain't the one who's going to."

_Take the bait take the bait please let's rag on Dave instead his insecurities are so much juicier than yours promise._

Bro gives a sad nod. _Phew_. "Dude's completely pussy-whipped and he hasn't even _seen_ it."

You nod sadly with him. The both of you proceed to hold a moment of silence in mourning for Dave's balls, which is broken when the cashier asks Bro to fork over his money.

You juggle bags until you figure out how best to hold them -- hung casually over your shoulder is the coolest -- and make your way back outside the shop. Hm, what next...

"So how many bases you made it to, lil' bro?"

 _Ffffff_. "I promise I don't need a condom talk or how not to make your alien make-out buddy Earth pregnant." You grumble. "Your _male_ alien buddy."

"You sure? He's an alien, they could have a seahorse deal for all I know."

"Nah, I think they hatch from oh hey what's that it almost sounded like I care, quick buy me a taco."

Okay, this time he snickered _audibly_. This is so wrong you want to dig a hole somewhere and bury yourself. It doesn't even need to be that deep, just enough to stuff your head in and wait for asphyxiation to catch up.

"Gotcha, kiddo, a last taco before you go on a hot dog diet."

You swing the bag at him; he dodges, and the cheap plastic rips a bit, so you have to stop. "Okay, drop it. We swapped saliva like _once_ , seriously, jumping the gun much?"

"So you admit that there is a gun to jump? Because if so it is my civic duty as an older brother to take that gun to dinner and show it a good time. If it's a particularly big gun, I may even respect it in the morning."

"... Wow did that one get away from you."

"Like a wild bronco."

"You are not seducing my gun, I saw it first, dibs. Go hit on rifles your own age, you old lech."

"I have a cannon joke on the tip of my tongue, hold on, it'll come to me... By the way do you need any--"

"-- _no oral tips no Bro none at all I will end you_."

It is ridiculous how easy you are to fluster today. You don't get why, it's almost like you kind of lost the habit of rolling with Bro's barbs in the three years he was dead for.

Surely can't be it. Nah.

The asshole pretends not to hear you as he ambles casually toward a taco fast-food joint. Mnrgh. You're hungry and you actually do want one, so you follow. While doing something that doesn't _sound_ like but is totally whining. "But seriously can you not cockblock me too much and condemn some poor dude to going all his life knowing he missed the whirlwind affair of his sad, empty life. Do you want that on what passes for your conscience."

"Aw, you care," Bro deadpans (even for _him_ it was deadpan.) "Eh, dodging the 'rents is a time-honored tradition. The fruit tastes sweeter after the effort. The taste of the forbidden--"

"Oh mighty jegus asslord buttercup no. Stop. Desist--"

Should have watched where you were putting your nice new shoes instead of glaring ineffectually after Bro, because the toes catch on something and you take a header toward the nearest bench. Aw shit--

Oh hey you're floating just over the bench and also something is strangling you.

Bro has you by the collar; the tents are on the floor. You blink up.

He stares back for a second, and then it's like he realizes what he's doing. Plop; you're on the floor. You haven't brained yourself on the bench, though, only smacked your knees. Urgh, mall floor, urgh urgh urgh. You get up in a huff, make yourself not scan the crowd for the assholes who burst out into snickers when you fell.

"What was that, Bro, getting jealous that the floor was impugning on your sacred Dave-tripping rights?"

... Shit, you just called yourself Dave, didn't you. You did. Wow, so not only you're enough of a douche to snark at a guy for helping you because it's mortifying that he _had_ to, but then you mess up your zinger with a -- with -- shit.

Shit.

"Lil' bro."

Suddenly, elbow on your head. You used to serve as an armrest so often as a kid, wow, even the sudden crick in your neck and the stumbling under his weight make you vaguely nostalgic.

Granted now he has to stretch up a bit to reach. You elbow him swift and merciless under the ribs. He curves with the blow to soften the impact and props his elbow right back on.

"Yep," he says after due deliberation. "Still armrest sized."

The two of you spend the rest of your mall time beating each other over the head with various purchases.

By unspoken agreement you both studiously ignore the bag of tacos tucked under Bro's right arm, seriously compromising his mobility.

\--

The second you get home Dirk -- apparently lying in wait for you -- ganks a taco and a tent from your and Bro's waiting arms and absconds to the roof.

"Gonna test how easy they are to set up!" he calls back on his way out. Slam! Door closed. You guess it's his turn to get some alone roof time. Neither Karkat nor Gamzee are in sight, and Terezi and Dave look like the most uncomfortable assholes in all of Paradox Space and also the real Space and basically all Space ever.

Bro just shrugs and starts eating. You and Dave hurry to snatch some food before it's all gone. Lunch and small talk ensue. You can't tell if Dave and his girlfriend talked anything out, or Karkat with anyone else, and you don't want to ask. It'll blow over on its own.

You hope. You are so not wading in any deeper than you already got. The water is freezing and you are crotch-deep in and Here Be Crocodiles.

Lunch had, you abscond to the bedroom and settle in for an afternoon of arduous interwebs surfing.

\--

You manage to ignore the blinking pesterchum icon for a grand total of three hours and 47 minutes. No one contacts you, even though you're on idle.

You think you're a little relieved behind the disappointment when ectoBiologist turns out to be gray and offline. He's not around! Sad. But at least he's not around and ignoring you?

God you sound like a twelve year old girl with a crush. Shit is so four years ago.

You've got a group chat invite in your tray. Before you can talk yourself into hermiting it up again you click it. Might as well. Who knows what you'd miss because no one would bother keeping you informed otherwise. (Yup, still holding a grudge.)

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] responded to memo --  


CHUMS  
apocalypseArisen (idle!)  
carcinoGeneticist  
gallowsCalibrator  
timaeusTestified (idle!)  
turntechGodhead  
twinArmageddons (idle!)

Oh joy.

Then again it'd be awkward with just about any asshole you know right know, except maybe Roxy, and that mostly because you don't know her much.

You sigh with the soulfulness of a Tom Hiddleston stan who cannot hold all these feels and aim your eyes back to the chat window.

TG: are you impugning on the power of my transcendental broship with john you unremitting asshole  
CG: ONCE AGAIN STRIDER DEMONSTRATES HIS TOTAL LACK OF DEEPER QUADRANT UNDERSTANDING. YOU CAN BE *BROS* WITHOUT BEING PALE, AND THANK FUCK BECAUSE IF THAT MATTERED AT ALL I WOULD BE IN A MOIRALLEGIANCE WITH *SOLLUX*.

\-- twinArmageddons [TA] sent the automated message  ii diiam2 u 2 kk honey  \--

GC: 1 H4V3 TO 4GR33 W1TH K4RK4T H3R3 MUCH 4S 1T P41NS M3  
GC: 3V3N 1F H1S CONCLUS1ONS 4R3 3NT1R3LY 3RRON3OUS  
CG: SHUT YOUR DEPRAVED WORD TRAP, YOU PALE SLATTERN. YOUR CONCLUSIONS ARE THOROUGHLY REPREHENSIBLE AND MORALLY UNTENABLE.  
TG: i thought humans were reprehensible and morally untenable ??  
TG: yo guys what are we talking about here  
TG: depravity hell yes sign me up  
CG: ... OKAY, WHO SAW HIM COME IN.  
GC: NOT M3 >;]  
CG: THAT JOKE WAS NOT OLDER THAN DIRT AT ALL.  
TG: wow cold sugar my <3 is like in a bazillion pieces now  
TG: welp wasnt paying attention to policing the chatroom i am the worst gatekeeper  
TG: yo you heard the shouty one no orange assholes here  
TG: imma tell dirk on you  
TG: ok fine jegus twisting my arm so damn hard its bound to fall off any second now  
TG: ...  
TG: ... shit okay i did not mean that one my bad  
GC: D4V3.  
GC: 1 4M F4C3P4LM1NG SO H4RD R1GHT NOW  
TG: jeeze it just slipped my mind it happens some days okay   
TG: im totally going to cry in my pillow now you callous evil bitch  
TG: unless you stop dodging the question like a pro ie previous topic is ??  
TG: mnrgh do we have to  
TG: yup  
TG: i am guilting you with my brain right now  
TG: fff theyre shipping gridding us what else i mean theyre trolls its pretty much their single topic of conversation ever  
TG: whoops i just lost my interest down a mine shaft  
TG: no get out get out theres schist gas everywhere welp too late it croaked  
GC: W3R3 4TT3MPT1NG TO F1GUR3 OUT YOUR P4L3 OTPS ! >:]  
TG: in depraved ways right how do you get pale depraved exactly  
TG: she ships us like   
TG: lemme look up the formula  
TG: (JOHN<>ROS3<>D4V3)c3<J4D3  
TG: oh  
TG: o i c rose sandwich with jade on top   
TG: niiiice  
TG: you go dogg  
CG: AND SHE IS OBVIOUSLY DELUDED. AS I WAS SAYING, FRIENDSHIP AND MOIRALLEGIANCE ARE NOTHING ALIKE. IT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO BE PALE FOR SOMEONE YOU ARE NOT INFECTED WITH THAT HUMAN DISEASE OF FRIENDSHIP TOWARD.  
TG: so what do you ship then school me in how it oughta go  
CG: WELL. THE CLOSEST TO REAL MOIRALLEGIANCE IS THE DAVE<>ROSE LINK. JOHN HAS NEVER PACIFIED EITHER OF THEM OR LET THEM PACIFY HIM ONE DAY OF HIS LIFE, THE CONTRARY ASSHOLE.  
TG: i dont pacify rose much tbh the broad is tractable as a mule tied to a boulder thats still rooted to the mountain underneath  
CG: YOU STILL HAVE THAT VIBE, OKAY, DON'T MAKE ME EXPLAIN WHEN WE BOTH KNOW THAT ONCE I'M DONE YOU'LL JUST SHRUG AND SAY YOU BOTHERED TO RETAIN EXACTLY NONE OF IT.  
AA: also you ship john<>byrd anyway! its kind of naughty to sideship you know  
TG: wut  
CG: I AM NOT SIDESHIPPING! IF I WERE SIDESHIPPING I WOULD BE USING A PAIRING I DON'T TRULY BELIEVE IN TO GET RID OF AN INTERLOPER IN MY REAL OTP. I'M SORRY IF YOU CAN'T SEE BOTH ROSE<>DAVE AND JOHN<>BYRD ARE TOTALLY VALID AND JUSTIFIABLE IN THEIR OWN RIGHT AND OH DEAR LITTLE HORRORTERRORS I SOUND LIKE A DOUCHIER NEPETA.  
AA: hahaha!  
TG: i see how it is byrd gives you the sweet brocuddles so he gets the diamondbitch award  
TG: your honor i wish to lodge a complaint the dishonorable karkat vantas is obviously taking hugglebribes  
GC: YOU DONT S4Y >:O S1R V4NT4S WH4T DO YOU H4V3 TO S4Y 1N YOUR D3F3NS3  
CG: THAT YOU ARE BOTH DELUDED.  
TG: yeah all them snugglehos love my biznasty platonic cuddles bitches cant get enough  
TG: never scared one off in my life or anything  
GC: >:?  
CG: ...  
CG: ANYWAY MAY I REMIND YOU ASSHOLES THAT JOHN IS MY HUMAN BROTHER NOW AND AS SUCH I AM PRIVY TO SOME THINGS.  
TG: what like he told you or like you imagined in your head he drew diamonds in sparkle gel pen on his screen around any orange text that pops up on his screen  
TG: ffs you get to be pale in a rosejade sandwich if you play your cards right i think i completely screwed the pooch that way  
TG: i screwed it in a way that means im never gonna get to screw it ever pale or black or fuchsia striped do you even understand the anguish there  
TG: you rock that dirty diamond twinbro  
TG: you rock it like youre the elvis of human quadrants  
TG: the pale hugh hefner  
TG: the gibraltar of moirallegiance  
TG: thats where you guys go whos gibraltar and we spin some bull story btw guys  
AA: i think by now we have all learned to feel that kind of tricky setup coming  
AA: sorry byrd!! better luck next time  
TG: bluh  
TG: bluh  
TG: ...  
TG: ...  
AA: and now for a cunning distraction!!   
AA: its lucky you never did go pale for sollux karkat id hate to have to destroy you!   
AA: that wreck is mine step off biatch  
AA: and on that note!

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] is idle! Message:  pile time wooo  \--

TG: dude radia is jake making moonshine in his mancave and using it as a deodorant  
TG: might have you been lighting the chimney with ample armfuls of hemp  
TG: swam in miraculous brandy fountains  
TG: volcano fumes ??  
CG: IN CONCLUSION: THE FUCK WAS THAT.

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] is idle! Message:  mmm pile  \--

GC: H4H4H4H4H4 >X] N3V3R CH4NG3 4R4D14

\-- twinArmageddons [TA] is idle! Message:  LATER2 BIITCHE2!!  \--

CG: SOMEONE CULL ME.

\--

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] --

GA: Hello  
GA: My Apologies For Trolling You Out Of What Rose Assures Me Is The Blue   
GA: I Hope I Am Not Interrupting Anything Important However Unlikely That Is  
TG: wow how dare you you just managed to divebomb right as cristina was about to leave albuquerque  
GA: Who Is That Albuquerque Person  
TG: a real cad and not someone id introduce even the worst ever alien to so youre pretty safe i guess  
TG: ok whats up on your side of the states anything interesting zapping by real quick outside your darkened window  
GA: Okay If You Say So  
GA: And No Not Really Driving Down The Interstate Is Really Dull After The First Six Hours  
GA: I Was Wondering About That Worrying Incident Dirk Told Roxy About  
GA: His Account Is Kind Of Lacking As You And Dave Have Seen Rather More Of It Than He Did  
TG: oho is this the fabled maryam meddling they warned me you were a true style meddler of old  
GA: Do You Truly Mind  
TG: idek do you mind if i put you on standby for a potential kinkily platonic four way auspititty fling in case gamzee flips his shit at me and or dave  
GA: I Believe My Response Is Best Framed In Human Style Punctuated Facial Mimic  
GA: :-X  
TG: you can platonically chainsaw his horns off i guess  
GA: Im In  
TG: haha seriously ??  
GA: I Was As You Call It Playing Along  
GA: Though If The Situation Devolves As A Human I Do Not Think You Can Sustain A Black Relationship Long Term But Thats Ok Neither Can I So I Would Be Willing To Intercede That Long  
GA: I Am Not The Best Auspistice But I Believe I Can Do A Satisfactory Job On The Short Term  
TG: well idk how long itll last for  
TG: as long as murderclown is on the warpath i guess  
TG: but dirk was all ready to step in to conciliate and even if were all poor humans pretending because of the one troll i dont want to accidentally get into even a fake romantic relationship with 1 gamzee motherfucking makara and 2 a guy im genetically related to shits just wack man  
TG: if you object to the three assholes to keep in line thing dave and me could pull off ye olde switcheroo behind your back and you could pretend youre only shooshpapping one of us  
TG: so what do you say babe  
GA: I Feel I Should Warn You A True Auspistice Is Impartial   
GA: As You Are Lacking Horns Which Parts Do You Preferentially Wish Me To Chainsaw Off  
TG: whoops look at that a case of facial mimic thing  
TG: D:  
GA: In Cases Of Grave Infraction  
TG: oh in that case  
GA: Well   
GA: ?  
TG: my uhhhh hair ???  
TG: do you do hairdos girl youd be awesome at them  
GA: Why Yes I Do  
GA: Are You Indicating That You Would Prefer Our Ashen Dates Revolve Around Hair Styling  
TG: dates what who talked about dates i said platonic  
GA: No Matter How Short Lived A Sham This Turns Out To Be I Am Not Putting Out Without Any Dates To Show For It  
GA: What Kind Of Lady Do You Take Me For Strider  
TG: bluh  
TG: no cutting until  
TG: i mean unless  
TG: i do something shitty to the clown first which he has not asked for okay  
TG: i guess for less srs stuff im down with like hair ribbons and even temporary dye and shit should be fun  
GA: No Cutting Of Hair Until You Do Something Shitty To The Clown Point  
GA: If I Let Either Of You Start A Revenge Cycle Soon You Will Have No More Limbs To Chop Off  
TG: bluh bluh okay geeze youre a harsh mistress  
GA: As Befits A Middle Leaf  
GA: Auspisticism Is Also A Relationship Based On Hate You Realize  
GA: Granted It Usually Takes The Form Of Mutual Annoyance Irritation or Frustration And Not A Passionate And All Encompassing Loathing As That Is More Of The Domain Of Kismesissitude  
TG: annoyance i can deal with esp if youre gonna be doing my hair  
GA: I Also Have This Dress You Would Look Gorgeous In  
TG: on second thought how bout we break up  
GA: Dont Worry We Are Not Together Until Both (Or All I Suppose In This Case) Mediated Parties Agree To It Or Cases Of Murder Are Narrowly Avoided In Which Case It Becomes An Emergency Thing Until We Determine if The Murdering Would Have Been Platonic  
GA: In Which Case You Are On Your Own  
TG: i love trolls so much dude  
TG: so much  
TG: ill get out the curling irons and stuff brb

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] is idle! --

GA: I Know You Are Likely Not Meaning A Single Word Of This Conversation And Will Quickly Disabuse Me Of The Notion That I Am Possibly About To Albeit Temporarily Fill A Quadrant  
GA: But In The Meantime Please Allow Me This One Small Affectation If You Dont Mind  
GA: c3<  
TG: aw damn girl  
TG: i got no idea if gamzees manslaughter lust is actually sexual at all  
TG: but even tho i understand jack shit about them i seem to keep falling assbackwards ever closer to all sorts of quadrants recently so why not awkwardly flirt with one more  
TG: c3<

\--

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

TT: :)  
TG: ??

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

TG: ??????? 

\--

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering timaeusTestified [TT] --

TG: welp so i accidentally on purpose fell in clubs with maryam  
TT: Log or it didn't happen.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] sent timaeusTestified [TT] the file heresyourhardproofmrskeptic.txt --

TT: Looks like. Congrats on getting your ... second quadrant filled!  
TG: whats the ellipses for asshole  
TT: Nothing, bro. Stuff falling on the keyboard. You know how it is.  
TT: Wonder what's going on on Kanaya's end.  
TG: i did not notice that distraction at all truly you are ninja  
TT: I'm banking on you getting sidetracked by a sudden and irrepressible desire to make impressions.  
TG: curse you down to the ninth level of hell my good sir  
TG: Gamzee What Are Your Intentions Toward The Byrd And Dave Humans  
TT: Why sis nothing they won't like hur hur hur.  
TG: youre the shittiest most ooc gamzee dude at least make some effort on syntax skullfucking  
TG: diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirk   
TG: dirk dirk dirk dirkiepoo dirkybaby  
TT: Hold your horses, I'm writing up some code to do the shitty seesawing caps for me. I'm not developing carpal tunnel syndrome in my shift finger just for the sake of broviding you with your allotment of impersonational shenanigans.  
TG: c3< you too bro

\--

By mutual, unspoken agreement, Dave Strider and The Strider Formerly Known As Dave decide to abscond in the middle of dinner.

You could not fucking abide the racket Bro and Gamzee were getting up to, with their impromptu rap battle over the fate, destiny and true allegiance of _motherfucking Lil' Cal_.

You'd probably have stayed were the topic anything else, because your Bro rules at rapping, okay, you can always learn more from him, and Gamzee oddly enough isn't half bad at it either, the fucking creepster. Bro would keep him in line easy enough, and the Terezi awkwardness would be relatively ignorable, but... just... Lil' Cal.

You suspect for Dave the reason was Terezi first, Cal second. Anyway here you both are, absconding up the staircase with dinner in hand, one paper bag each.

You sneak him a glance. "So. Uh."

He's one step ahead; he rounds his back pointedly, shoulders hunched. No Byrd nosiness allowed! he telegraphs. "No, I'm not worried over what Terezi and Gamzee are gonna get up to for fuck's sake. I've got to let them bond or whatever anyway so why not now."

"... That's nice, I was going to ask if you thought to bring the mustard along but okay."

He kicks back at you without looking back; you high-kick his heel aside, making him stumble a little bit. You're pretty sure his face is flushed a little bit. "Fuck you, who do you take me for, mustard _and_ ketchup."

"Awesome." A beat. "Especially since Bro's here to chaperone, amirite."

He pauses on the landing between the two flights of stairs, purses his mouth at you, his glare invisible behind the shades but felt anyway. You quirk an eyebrow back, hop the bag of fried chicken up, snatch a piece with your teeth when it jumps free. _King_ of smooth.

"Man you are so uninterested in my life story, I cannot get over how much you never prod or nose around whenever the topic comes up."

... Yes well. "Dude, I just want to make sure I'll be losing my V-card first, it's pure asshole schadenfreude."

He stares. " _Who do you even want to lose it with, dude._ "

Good question. Jade's way out of the question, even if she took you back you'd be too ashamed; John, haha, so not going there again; Roxy's kind of your ectomom, Jane scares you a little, you barely know Sollux -- oh hey looks like at the moment Karkat is still the only tail in town but before he puts out you might have to buy him a ring.

Anyway you are so not here yet.

"Idek. Whoever. The rate at which you're going with your actual official girlfriend, I'll be getting hitched to some gorgeous nympho and you'll still be seeing unicorns."

Dave pushes up his shades to massage the bridge of his nose and glare at you, but he looks tired. It's weird seeing his eyes. You don't even see yours all that often, not even in the bathroom mirror. You look away, kick awkwardly at the step, regret the fact that you can't stick a nonchalant hand in your pocket and hold food both.

"So. Uh."

"Just ask, dude."

Okay, good, you're on the same wavelength, you want to know and he wants to tell, awesome. "She put out for him yet?"

"... Nah." You can't tell if he's relieved or not. His mouth is folded down a bit at the corner.

"Huh. 'Cause it pisses him off more to wait?"

"I'm sure that's half of it," Dave says, and flicks you a little smirk. He, huh, wow, it's hard to tell in the bad lighting of the stairwell but you'd almost swear he's blushing. You arch your eyebrows. "She, uh. Er. I was here first so I get to, you know."

It'd be pretty hilarious how raunchy and callous he can get when it doesn't concern him and how bashful when it does, if only you weren't pretty sure you'd be the same in his place. But hey, Terezi's not your girlfriend, so _you_ can be callous if you want. "Tap dat ass first? Plow that virgin field? Boldly go where no man has gone before?"

"Mnrgh. Yeah." ... Okay now he's squirming, ahaha what. This is disturbingly hilarious. "But I can't drag it on and cockblock them for ages either."

You stare. And stare a little more. And then you crack up. "Oh dear baby Jegus and his sleigh of squiddles, she gave you _an ultimatum to put out_ , that's straight-up magical."

Aw fuck, you really do like her. No, bad, no. Okay, she still grates, but you guess you can stamp your seal of approval on that shit. Not that either of them would give a shit and not that it was your place but... okay yes cutting off that line of thought now.

He kicks at you, grumpy, wide enough that you barely need to lean back to dodge.

"Welp, guess you get to explore that crawlspace after all. I don't see where else you're gonna find the privacy. I'd tell you the shower but even if you walked in already joined at the crotch you wouldn't both fit inside that goddamn cabin. Unless you didn't mind your pasty ass hanging out the door."

He's pretty much pink now. You pinch your lips.

"Rose and company get here _tomorrow_ ," he tells you with what you recognize with embarrassment as soul-deep horror. "I've got until _tomorrow?_ And then they'll _all_ be _here_ and then we'll be on a _cruise_ and -- how the hell -- I, where, when ? -- aw, fuck you. Fuck this. Fuck everything."

He turns away, stomps up the second flight of stairs. You amble after him, and generously do not prod or heckle or otherwise do anything he might do back at some nebulous later date.

You emerge on the roof in sunset light, the city sprawling all around you in reds and golds through the haze of pollution fumes. God you're going to miss the view when you're stuck in that tropical paradise of Jade's.

You hop up another chicken nugget. Chomp.

"Did you guys bring us dinner? You shouldn't have, thanks," Dirk drones from his six-people tent in the middle of the roof. He rolls on his front half-out of the tent flap, propped up on his elbows, and makes gimme motions with his fingers.

Probably in a hurry to escape the conversation you guys just had, Dave trudges his way to him with barely a sigh. You _did_ steal more than enough for three...

Oh hey tiny horns and a black tuft of hair. The second tent is set up further back, by the radio tower; Karkat is peeking out, you can barely see him over the roof of Dirk's tent. You shake your paper bag at him meaningfully.

He furrows his brow like whether to come out and grab some food before it's all gone is a complex math problem. You shrug and tilt the bag over your mouth to get another two pieces to roll right in -- whoa, almost dropped one.

Dave is sitting cross-legged beside Dirk, the bag set down beside them. They're not talking, just fishing in the bag and munching together, gazing vaguely at a plane trail in the process of crossing the sunset.

Okay, you're not gonna stand here like a tool until nightfall. You amble toward Karkat's tent, peek inside curiously. It's pretty much empty, not even a sleeping bag or a mattress -- not that a troll would like one, or not kill it with claws -- just a backpack and a weird leggy laptop, which he finishes shutting down before turning back to eye you.

It's funny how Karkat looks at you, vaguely frowning like he's not too sure what to make of you. You hold out the bag like a peace offering.

One of his fangs snags on his (gothy black) lip. Hm.

"Chicken?"

He reaches for the bag; you hand it over at his tug, even though you didn't intend to give him the _whole thing_ , damn it--

\-- Oh.

Fingers coming back to hook into your collar, the bag abandoned off to the side. Okay. Tugging you down on one knee, to lean inside the tent. Why not.

A kiss. Sure.

Your lips part under his; you press back. He's not tentative or gentle this time around, the kiss is a little hard, almost like he wants to prove he can. It's nice. It's... really nice. You nibble; his tongue darts in, his hand slips around the back of your neck, claws prickling, and you groan, you can't keep it in.

Tent cloth rustles hard and you both jerk back, breaking contact. Shit, shit, Dave and Dirk saw you --

A crow takes flight from the top of Dirk's tent, a chicken nugget in its beak.

Fucking feathery asshole.

You turn into your crouch and eye the hanging cloth flap warily, embarrassed. Karkat bats it away from his face and stares at you. You stare back with equal amounts of _'well that went smoothly, and was not at all embarrassing as fuck, is it even worth it to try again'._

You're teenagers so you're pretty sure the answer would have been yes, only then there's Dave calling out, "Dudes, the mustard is here, you're gonna have to move your asses if you want any."

You breathe in. You breathe out. You rake a hand in your hair to smooth out any potential telltale mussed lock. "Yeah, one minute, Vantas fucked up his tent, don't eat everything."

The glare said Vantas spears you with as you kick one of the supports out of alignment does not speak well of your chances of a repeat performance.


	7. 7: Day twelve, evening

It is party time tonight at Casa de Strider, by which you mean on the roof which technically is not part of the apartment but fuck that noise.

It's also only a party if you consider a bunch of people sitting or standing around making small talk in between yawns a party.

John's dad and Jade and her hellbeast came back a hour ago, with Rose and Roxy and their mom and Kanaya in tow. Which means there are now at last count fourteen people in the apartment, if you count the dog. You do count the dog. He might know somehow if he were uncounted and come nosing at you with his long, freaky muzzle and then everyone would be embarrassed. Especially you, re: the pissing of your pants.

You take a handful of greasy chips and quickly sneak away from the snacks table under which the hellbeast is napping. Phew, safe.

Who to hang with, now. The adults are clumped together, Dadbert and Bro sitting on the drop between the roof itself and the staircase landing, LadyLush Lalonde on a plastic garden chair which you don't even know where Bro liberated it from. Bluh. Jade and Terezi, in deep secret discussion together. Also no. Hell no. From the half-horrified, half-fascinated expression on Dave's face they're talking about bras or periods or something even worse like maybe sex. Rose and Kanaya watching the last of the sunset together, hand in hand, having a ~moment. Noooope, you'll chat with Kanaya later. Roxy -- huh -- hanging off Murderclown's neck and giggling, as Cranky McCuteGlutes glowers suspiciously at them. Wonderful mystery! You're content never to unravel it.

Dirk is standing by the far corner of the roof, but with the tents and so many people spreading around it's actually not that far away.

You hesitate to amble his way. He might not mind a bit of quietly sitting at his side, but he might also mind a hell of a lot and just not say it. Everyone laughs about your alone princess time but you're pretty sure half the time Dirk spends locked up in the bathroom the water's not even running.

"Hey," Karkat says all low and rough-voiced from your side.

Thank fuck someone to talk to. Who's also got a mouth you can stare at and see how fast he blushes. Yess. No one else in earshot... "Hey, hot stuff." You give him the Eyebrow.

He glowers back, grumpily. "I'm not here to subject myself to your horrid pickup lines. Need to drop a word in your ear, and then if you still have two sponge cells left over you could maybe even pass it on to the right person, though I'm not holding my breath."

You frown a little. "Whoa there, I'm not playing those games. You want something said, say it yourself."

Karkat gives a frustrated huff. "I would except I can't. It'd be rude as fuck from me, and you might not have any grasp of quadrant etiquette but if any of you humans do Lalonde will, and she's about the only one of you lot I'd rather not insult to her face. She keeps _grudges_."

Do trolls ever make sense? You rather think not. You decide to prod him along and just watch his mouth move, and like, maybe listen to one word out of ten. Yep, good plan. "Oh, but _I_ can say something."

"The way I get your creepy brotherhood thing, you and Dave are sort of genetic platonic moirail-ashenmates, so it'd be less insulting from you to walk up to Rose and tell her to fix Dave already, since you're already more or less quadrant-corners that way."

Okay no, the stupid was so diamond-dense in that one it pierced right through your filters. "... Dave needs fixed now."

"He's _moping_ ," he explains, and there's a weird, subtle tension in his voice that has you arching an eyebrow. "It strains Terezi. She takes it out on Gamzee."

"Ain't she supposed to?"

Karkat stares at you in offended yet unsurprised disbelief, and then rakes a hand in his hair and tugs on a handful of it. "Good jolly chucklefuck, you really _are_ congenially inept at kismesissitude. _No she's not_."

You are totally willing to take him at his word. Secretly, because like fuck you're going to say so. "Sounds like it to me. A good dose of unfairness would get anyone boiling with rage, yeah?"

He breathes in and out loud and slow, tugs on his hair again. You'd be amused at his over-the-top antics but his eyes are tight at the corners in a way you don't like much. "Rage because she puts her matesprit's feelings over her kismesis'," he explains with put-upon patience, "is going to turn platonic pretty damn quick. I've had it up to _here_ with shooshing Gamzee out of killing more of my fucking friends."

You'd cross your arms if you could, mantle your wing; you have to settle for setting your hand on your hip pointedly. It's hard having to rework your body language. It's hard and nobody understands. "Shouldn't you be calming Gamzee's tits first and foremost then?"

He twitches -- flinches -- and his lip curls up in an aborted snarl. One he fully meant. Huh. And then he looks away. "Now _that_ really isn't any of your gogdamned business."

You stare. Well, fuck. "Are you... _not_ calming Gamzee's tits?" Like, uh, train approaching breakup central, please make sure you haven't forgotten any mementos you don't want thrown out the window between the seats? "Okay, now _that_ I think we all need to know."

He's suddenly in your face, a low rattlesnake buzz underlining his words. " _Mind your own fucking business_."

You narrow your eyes and give him a cold look over the rim of your shades, and you loom right back. You have a couple of inches on him, which you use remorselessly. "It _is_ my business to know if me and my _family_ should be sleeping _armed and in shifts_."

Flinch. Nostrils flaring. (His gray irises are flecked with red and his eyelashes short but stupid-thick somehow, why is he still pretty.)

"I'm. Still settling his shit. If needed. I just --"

... Okay, no, you didn't want to make him sound defeated, to make his shoulders droop like this. That's just making you squirmy inside, second-hand embarrassed in a way that makes your guts want to run away without the rest of you.

"It's not fucking easy to talk things out with him right now, okay? I -- fuck, I can't just pretend he -- I can't just come crawling back, I can't always be the one who compromises because _oh my shitting bulgerot Highblood rage incoming_ , don't ask that of me."

"Mnrgh," you reply intelligently, and then you cave. "Okay, jegus, I'll tell Rose to skullfuck Dave into being less of a whiny tool. She must be exhausted from all that road head that she ain't already on the job. Broad does it just for the fun of it most days, I swear." Siiigh. You ogle Rose and her glowy girlfriend. "But seriously it'd make way more sense for you to go direct to Rose. I'm starting to think you just want to avoid your own round of feelings autopsy."

Karkat still looks tired, but less tense already now you've said yes. He steals a glance at Roxy and Gamzee, still chatting in a weird easy way that you refuse to comprehend. Maybe talking about the joys of getting high and committing atrocities upon all of grammarkind. "Like you never run from Rose," he says.

"Slander, my good sir, I demand a duel at dawn to salve my honor. Only crossing the swords will wash away this affront."

Long heavy-lidded, measuring, unimpressed stare. "Let me guess, this is where you mention sheathing your blade in my body and I swoon under your mastery of innuendo."

You shrug. "I was just thinking frottage but if you're up for the full sex then who am I to scorn the heartfelt gift of your deflowering."

"I might mention that it's a classical caliginous overture," he retorts, eyes narrowed, claws flexing slowly. "Are you _sure_ you want to go there, Strider, because right now I don't think I would mind."

You raise your hand defensively. "Whoa, hold your big war steed, knighty. Bloodletting? Not sexy."

Karkat huffs and crosses his arms; he looks both vindicated and faintly disappointed. You're not sorry about that, he needs to get used to that kind of disappointment _thankyouverymuch_.

"So... bluh. What do I even tell Rose, like I want to give her a full situation update..."

"She'll have pieced up most of it together already," Karkat replies. "The rest she'll probably drag out of him in under a minute." He looks at your moue and rolls his eyes at you, but when he speaks next he sounds calmer, maybe almost a little apologetic, in a grumpy Karkaty way. "Technically I should go to Terezi's moirail first, since she's the shatterpoint. It really makes things problematic that she doesn't have one."

"A fact which I did not use to bemoan!" said Terezi says from _juuust_ behind him. He jumps.

You pinch your lips. You could have told him she was coming up, you guess. Eh.

Her shoulders are droopy too. This is all kinds of wrong. You frown a little. Karkat looks like you feel, like he's now holding the unfortunate baby of Oh Shit and Aw Hon that someone shoved in his arms without warning.

Terezi looks like she wanted to say more -- mouth open, turned toward Karkat -- but then she seems to remember he's the palebro of the asshole causing her Boy Troubles and she closes it again, smiles a bright smile; you can see behind her shades from that angle and she is absolutely not meaning it. "... Anyway. I'm going for pizza, before I start sobbing wretchedly over the desolate state of my pale quadrant. Should I bring you guys a piece?"

"You trying to court me into pale marrying you, Pyrope?" you say tonelessly.

You were joking but swear to fuck for a second she seems tempted.

Karkat bristles, though. Huh, what the fuck is that about? It's not like being pale with her would stop you two getting your mack on. (Not that you want to be pale with her anyway, so double-u-tee-eff.)

"Byrd already has a moirail," he says, joking in that way which means he isn't really. "Don't make him cheat on John, I know humans are shameless pale floozies but _you're_ not human."

"Careful now," you reply because fuck if you're gonna let him dictate who you can not-flirt with, even if that someone is Terezi Pyrope, the girl who comes stamped with a NOPE so big you can see it from orbit. "Imma be tempted to ho it up just to rub your delicate sensibilities the wrong way. Is John even aware of the deep and meaningful romantic bond you're touting there, Vantas?"

Karkat rolls his eyes at you. "John wouldn't be aware of his own mating urges if his bulge were stuffed to the hilt up someone's waste chute, why in the vast shit-filled viscera of the universe frog do you think he'd notice anything subtler?"

Terezi and you accidentally chorus a "Point." She immediately reprises with "But I do not concede that John diams Byrd is canon!", lips pursed, cheeks puffed out like an annoyed squirrel. You wonder if you should feel a sting. You elect to carefully hoard your fucks like you're the Scrooge McDuck of fuck-giving. Yup, all duck-billed and not letting a single little fucklet escape your tight little fist.

Quack quack quack.

Caw.

Whoops.

Maybe you can be a hoarding magpie building his nest out of fresh fucks in sticks, that's at least the right avian family.

You try to ignore the shit out of them as they keep yammering about shipping, god knows why; they sound weirdly forced and it's getting on your nerves. You turn away, scan the roof; people have moved toward the main street more to watch some kind of... you don't have a clue, maybe there's a procession down there, you've been hearing sirens but that's not exactly unusual in this part of town. You step away from the two trolls and scan the gathering for someone else to latch onto, who preferably won't find your epic bromance with John a matter of thoughtful, at-length analysis.

Yeah okay sorry Dirk, he got his alone time, he can guarantee yours starting now. You start toward him.

He's there at the edge of the crowd, most backs turned to him as people chatter and laugh and point down at -- at what, you wonder, a circus, an elephant, a celeb' toolbox strutting down the avenue in their convertible? Some naked carpenter dudes banging in the bed of a pickup truck? You're sure you'll be given the full rundown the second you slow down enough to get harpooned.

You're still ten steps away when Dirk jerks himself up on his feet, plants a hand on the wall, and vaults right the fuck over it.

You don't think; you dash to follow him overboard, save him.

So does Bro, thoughtless, and you catch yourself thinking _no, he's gonna crash, he can't fly._

Neither can you.

You come to a screeching stop at the wall, hand smacking hard on it to kill your momentum, Bro's hand vice-tight on your shoulder. A story down Dirk does a turn on his rocket board and disappears in the living room through an open window, leaving a looping trail of smoke.

Holy fuck.

"Holy fuck," says Bro, in that too-calm, but really not calm at all voice. "Holy mother of fuck. Holy fuck family. I'm going to kill that kid dead and stuff his corpse."

He drags you back. You teeter the tiniest bit. Your heart is in your throat. You'd forgotten Dirk had that thing on him. What the hell.

When you turn back toward the group, the adults are eyeing you, and so are Terezi and Karkat who were apparently following you, and Kanaya, who probably saw you race past. Their eyes are a little wide; you sigh and make a point of relaxing your shoulders, of looking exasperated. It's still hard to breathe.

"I am going to kill him, and then I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to kill Dave just in case, and then we'll be a perfect Prospit family. I'll get matching porcelain tea sets and play pretend with the lot of you ever day. So much fun to be had. So. Much. Fun."

Uh oh.

... You can't believe you forgot you couldn't fly anymore. And Dirk inside the apartment already, who knows if he'd have heard you yell. That's a lot of floors to fall by.

Bro's glaring at the staircase, though -- you grab his wrist. "No -- Bro, wait."

"Why the fuck --"

"Dude," you whisper urgently, and wince a little when he glares the glare of _don't **you** think you're in the clear, buster_, "if Dirk was flinchy enough that he couldn't even cross through the crowd to take the goddamn stairs, what do you think is gonna happen if you charge in now."

If you're all lucky he'll just jump out a window again and disappear for the next day (which would mean you miss your flight.) Worst case scenario, he flips out and they have themselves a battle royale with live blades.

"What do you fucking _suggest_ then."

You wince. Guh. Shit, now you have to come up with an actual solution. You look around -- Rose and Jade are starting to turn around, puzzled. Uh, maybe Terezi will -- no, she's gone all battle-tense, fingers twitching like she's about to pull things out of her sylladex. Gamzee is watching you and Bro through hanks of messy hair and his expression is completely unreadable and gut-deep unsettling. Shit.

Kanaya...? You give her a pointed look, a borderline harsh nod toward Roxy, who's draped over the wall and still laughing at whatever is going on down below. _Dear gog if you exist,_ you think, and then _dear Bilious Slick junior_. Kanaya blinks once, confused, and a second time in a 'oh!' way, and taps Roxy on the shoulder, leans in to whisper in her ear.

_Thank you, froggod._

Roxy listens for a few seconds and then she slaps her forehead, grimacing, and takes off at a quick jog for the stairs. You eye Bro warily.

Mr. Egbert walks up to him, pats his shoulder, face a picture of sympathy. "John almost broke his leg the first day trying to float down the stairs."

Bro goes _mnrgh_ and stuffs his hands deep in his pockets, but he doesn't shrug him off. You tiptoe away before he remembers to yell at you for that stunning moment of brilliance.

Shit.

Sburb Hospital, Neuroses on Sale for Cheap! You give in and drag yourself back to Terezi and Karkat, since apparently you are doomed on pain of Darwin Award to their company.

"Okay, crisis handled, shut the fuck up. My, what nice weather we're having."

You see them throwing little glances at Bro over your shoulder before they exchange a look (well, Karkat looks and Terezi tilts her head his way) and finally simmer down.

"Well fuck me twice, I did _not_ expect any kind of Strider to be a diamond pimp," Karkat says.

"Yes, outstanding job  with the awareness of group dynamics," Terezi rejoins with a bright, unsettling grin. "You'll make an awesome quadrant facilitator."

You grimace. You bet quadrant facilitator is an euphemism for whoremonger. Maybe matchmaker if you're being generous. "It's not awareness of jack shit, it just made sense to send the one girl he knows and who knows how to handle him, rather than Bro in full-on spanking mode. It's not like Dirk ever got a spanking in his life, be a bit harsh for a first time."

"... No, sorry, that's still what we call meddling in those rarefied circles known as civilization. Since when are you a meddler?"

Since you claimed the "going to pieces" role in this party, you want to say, but that'd reveal too much. (Since you kind of still feel half a step removed from humanity some days and gathering and analyzing player data is an ingrained habit.) (Since you wish someone would see you back.)

You glare at Karkat. No more makeouts for him.

"Perhaps Kanaya is already having an undue influence on him!"

Karkat stares at Terezi, baffled; she grins. You know you're in for another round of _let's discuss Byrd's imaginary quadrants like he's not standing right here._ Okay, who out here would you not mind jumping off the roof if you went to chat them up... Damn, you actually like most of them, looks like you're stuck.

"Didn't you know! I have it from Jade who had it from Rose herself that Byrd here made ashen overtures to Kanaya and _she's considering!_ Swoon, swoon."

"I did _not_ fucking know," he rejoins with delighted outrage. " _When did that happen_. Who w--"

Huh, penny's dropped.

He thinks about it for a second, his face going through a series of more and more unreadable contortions. "... Could do worse. Do you know, Terezi, I used to think you were going ashen for Gamzee and Kanaya, with the -- heh -- the getting in the middle." Karkat tries on a smile. You wince. "Hah. Haha. Maybe you're right and I'm actually hideously terrible at figuring out any kind of romance. Maybe it actually _is_ a perverted four-way pale clusterfuck. Maybe--"

You can't take it anymore. It's just hitting every single cringe button you have. That secondhand embarrassment is dealt by a pimpslapping pro, ow your poor whore mouth.

"Hey wanna hook up."

A beat.

"Tonguingly."

Terezi bursts out laughing, though she immediately presses a hand on her mouth like she feels bad about it. Karkat's face turns ruddy in spectacular blotches. " _Strider what the fuck--_ "

"Or like with other parts if you really insist I gotta rub Dave's face in my mastery of alien bits you know like a horn job or something if you're into that--"

" _I am going to kill you._ "

"Sure, but only a little one, 'kay?"

Terezi is biting down on her fist, body shaking with the laughter she heroically swallows back. It's so much better than the hurting, sorry look from earlier you can't even quantify it. You dodge behind her as Karkat lunges for you, claws out.

"No but seriously I like your horns they'd both fit in one hand if they were any closer it's horrible how tiny and cute they are you could almost lose them in your hair, wow, hey, no throwing chairs, bad Karkat, naughty--"

"Son, what's going on?"

... Bluh. Mr. Egbert had to intervene just when you were about to leave the safety of the Pyrope Demilitarized Zone and lead him on a chase around the air conditioning units. You'd be out of sight and everything behind those. But nope, the second he hears his voice Karkat goes straight to meek and embarrassed.

"Um, sorry, Dad. We were just playing around."

When the man looks at you for confirmation you shrug. You're pretty sure he can tell you were needling Karkat, but he decides to let it go. "I see. I do wish you'd play a little less rough on the furniture, if you could."

"Yeah, okay."

Boom, calmed, even maybe a little peaceful. _What is that miracle_. You arch an eyebrow over your shades, trade a look with Terezi. Her lips are pursed and both her own eyebrows halfway up her hairline.

"Did we just see that," you whisper.

She whispers back, not that quietly. "I think we did, but I am not sure what we saw at all."

"It looked pretty... _conciliatory_."

"Shut up before you embarrass yourself with your piss-poor understanding," Karkat throws at you, but almost mildly. "It's not romance, he's my friggin' _lusus_."

He then seems to have himself a private, not-internal-enough moment of squee! daddy! about it. You refrain really hard from making a kink joke.

Terezi's pointy face is one big _d'awwww_. What is that morass of syrupy _feels_ you're swimming in, you're _drowning_ , quick, a Strider to be dry and douchebaggy with--

"Sup."

Any Strider but Dave please. No, okay, Dave's not too bad. It could have been Gamzee. Not that Gamzee is a Strider, but as much as it makes you retch to think of, he's almost kind of an in-law. Once removed.

"What's the haps in this fine corner of roof," Dave says, inserting himself between you and Terezi.

"We're planning to hook up threesome-style and run away from it all. Sexy sandwiches all up in that bitch."

"No," he deadpans at the trolls, "say it isn't so."

Terezi puts on a hammy sad look. "Alas, my love...!"

Karkat sighs, rolling his eyes. You can't get over how hilariously mobile his face is. The _things_ he does with his eyebrows alone. "Yeah, we figured we were cursed to contend with lusus-haired douchebags unto death anyway, might as well limit that egregious bullshit to a single one."

Dave stares at Karkat for a couple of seconds and then at you. "How do you get Karkat to play along I can never get him to play along you're cheating and I hate you."

Bland look. "I bribe him with horn jobs."

"Huh." He considers it. Karkat goes a little pink and Terezi snickers. "I could try that."

" _If you want to lose that hand_."

"Also mad platonic snuggles. Bitches dig my snuggles. I don't advise losing the hand, though, it's a drag to have nowhere to put your watch."

... Note to self, cripple jokes only funny to self and maybe select siblings. Now Karkat looks all guilty. Fuck.

"... Dude, it's not taboo. Bite away. Evil body parts all up and asking for it."

Bingo; he goes ruddy again. And then he shoves your shoulder and kicks you in the ankle.

"Ow. I draw the line at one missing limb, Vantas, desist with the attempts at laming me, no seriously stop it, ow, I'm gonna tell on you to Dadbert."

You shoulder him away; he scowls. You bounce off his side again, bland-faced.

Bickering is fun. (Funnier than _feelings_.)

You pretend you can't feel Gamzee's burning eyes on the back of your head.

\--

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

GA: I Have Talked To Gamzee He Is Uninterested In I Quote Your Flat Sickly Glutes  
GA: :(   
TG: aw sis  
TG: idk if i feel relieved or emo my ass is not flat ok fuk u  
TG: actually more like alarmed fff he keeps staring i could swear it only i can never catch him at it   
GA: That Is Very Possible Gamzee Is Rather Creepy Like That  
GA: I Admit I Am Somewhat Disappointed  
GA: I Should Have Known Better Than To Hope   
TG: um  
TG: we can still have that date if you insist insistingly like the nagging nag you totally are maryam jegus stooping to blackmail now the shame  
GA: Oh My Mr Strider Were You Perhaps Looking Forward To The Makeover  
TG: i can neither confirm nor deny this allegation  
GA: It Would Have Been A Very Inefficient Deterrent In That Case   
GA: Perhaps Its For The Best Then  
GA: :)   
GA: By The Way Gamzee Also Told Me To Tell You To Stop Flipping On Karkat Or Hell Get Platonic On Your Ass  
TG: wait what  
TG: i am not flipping jegusfuck   
GA: So There Is Something Occurring There  
GA: Hmmmmmmm  
GA: Tell Me More About This Thing That Is In No Case Flipping  
TG: its not flipping its pigtail pulling a fine time honored human courtship tradition which as you know is by def always flush as karkats face after a nice bout of innuendo  
TG: not that i actually like him or anything i mean hes an ok friend and all i just think hes not ugly theres no deeper feelings or anything i barely know the guy  
TG: the more i explain the more it sounds like denial doesnt it  
GA: Feel Free To Keep Going In That Vein  
TG: just cant win with you broads  
TG: what is it about me that makes me such a diamond stud  
GA: No Wed Be Really Badly Matched Its Just Nosiness  
TG: oh ok then  
TG: look a two leafed clubs co<   
TG: today i fix your grid today i create the *missing link*  
TG: the nosy broads quadrant  
TG: fiftrant ??   
TG: we are now gossipchumps otp forever  
GA: Hee  
GA: This Is Rather Silly But   
GA: co<   
GA: Now Does That Mean You Are Actually Obligated To Tell Me About Your In No Case Quadrant Related Thing With A Certain Grumpy Young Man We Both Know  
TG: ...   
TG: damn  
TG: knew i was forgetting something


	8. 8: Day thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Goodbye one-chapter buffer. I'm only halfway into the next chapter, will tyr to complete it today... :/

"Fuck's sake. Just go away, okay, I'll do it faster on my own."

For a second you're tempted to pick up the laptop you just dropped on the floor and throw it at Dave's head. Fuck him. It's not your fucking fault you were ... trying to move heavy, fragile technology one-handed. Okay, yes it is. But fuck him anyway. He's been a grumpy little shit ever since Bro woke you all up and you started gathering the crap not already boxed.

With the way he's not looking at Terezi, who's dismantling the sleeping pile into garbage chute-sized chunks in the corner, you can guess who he'd really like to be arguing with. You watch him pick up the laptop and check the case for damages, put it away in a box barely more gently than when you dropped it. Fuck him, it's _your_ laptop, Bro got it for _you_.

"What?" he asks you, scowling. You turn away and walk out before any fists can be exchanged.

The living room is bare and weirdly wide open. Bro and Dadbert moved the couch downstairs for the garbage collection truck to pick up (or a neighbor, neighbor's more likely) and all the tables got dismantled into planks and cinderblocks. The TV and turntables huddle by the door, ready to be carried down whenever LaMomlonde gets back with the truck she's gone to rent.

Bro's emptying the fridge. You think about going to help.

You think about dropping a bowl of old noodles on the floor, congealed mess sprinkled with broken crockery.

You climb the ladder under the crawlspace instead. "Going to check no one's forgotten anything in here," you grunt, and you shoulder the trapdoor out of the way and haul yourself the rest of the way up.

Bang. Darkness.

You allot yourself thirty seconds to seethe in the dark, and then you start feeling ridiculous and like maybe spiders are about to land on your face and you crawl your way to the light switch.

There's only the one bare light bulb up here, throwing deep shadows everywhere its weak, yellowed halo doesn't touch. The roof is low enough you'd knock your head on it if you went up straight on your knees.

There's a pile of smuppets in the corner that Terezi probably used as bedding and which you are grateful to pretend to miss entirely and _oh no so sad we forgot them back home_ once you're halfway across the Pacific. Jade's sleeping bag is folded by her backpack; you pick it up thoughtlessly and then wonder how the fuck you're supposed to roll it up and tie it to the backpack like this.

No, fuck it, you can manage. Maybe if you kneel on it to keep it pinned and shuffle along as you roll...

Bluh. It's going to be an ugly bundle. But by God it's going to be bundled up.

Light spills in from behind you, the trapdoor creaks; you turn, already scowling. Damn it.

Nubbly horns, a nest of black hair. Gray hand. Karkat's eyes find yours and he arches a doubtful, unimpressed eyebrow at your expression.

"Thanks so much for keeping me company on this arduous task, Karkat," he snarks, and climbs in. He closes the trapdoor as he looks around curiously. It's a lot of bricks not even painted over, exposed wires running along the walls, and dustbunnies. "Huh, cozy."

"Mnrgh." You go back to your sleeping bag roll. If he offers to help you might just bite.

"You're so chatty today. I'm impressed, by which I of course mean aghast and half-deaf. My hearing flaps are going to fall off, for the love of little grubs stop."

He drones along, sarcasm mode fully on. You try to keep ignoring him. It fails.

"Just... go sift through that pile of horrors for lost cell phones or what the fuck ever Terezi might have dropped in it, and shut up, okay?"

Karkat sighs, not as under his breath as he thinks, and shuffles past you on hands and knees. You glare down at the sleeping bag, which you have finally wrestled into a lumpy sausage shape. Only took you ten minutes, too. Now how the fuck to pin it under the bag's flap...

His foot glances off your knee a bit hard in passing. "Ow, careful." You glare after him.

Oh hey troll ass.

It occurs to you to wonder what the heck he's doing here. Apart from crawling around with his ass up, that is. Uh. Nice shorts.

He glances over his shoulder; you turn away quickly. Whoops, caught. It's not your fault he was...

Uh...

You sneak another look, just in time to see him heave a loud frustrated sigh and plop down on his tush in the smuppet pile. You grimace as a red-felted one in bondage gear tumbles into his lap, quivering dicknose fitting itself nicely between his bare thighs. Blurgh.

"Okay, cough it up," he orders, hands raking through the pile with only the barest grimace of distaste for what he's touching. "The amount of bitching accumulating in your thinkpan is about to hit critical and blow the top of this building clean off, and I wouldn't give a shit, only I happen to still be inside it."

"Isn't that a bit too feelings jammy?" you grumble back, as you cautiously drag the backpack closer, top flap stretched on the ground, and even more cautiously roll the sleeping bag onto it.

"Only if you join me on here and let me pap you in the face as you explain at length the origins of your neuroses. You're allowed to shed a tear." He rolls his eyes at you, and then leans back on his hand and hip to stretch toward the far end of the pile, in the darkest corner.

Hello hipbone.

Mnrgh. "What are you doing here, anyway, don't you have... _things_ to do?" You don't know what, but you're sure there must be some chore he was given. Maybe he's already done? Maybe there's so many people around he was just being a hindrance, oh wait that's you.

He frowns a little, but it's a sober, vaguely sad one.

"Dad's teaching Gamzee how to use a barbecue." A little uncaring shrug. Yeah right. You're buying that one. "And he -- Gamzee's pretty calm around him, and I'm shit at cooking anyway."

There's no sibling jealousy in there that you can hear, no "well if Dad's going to prefer _him_ then I'm leaving, see if you don't miss me."Nothing so childish. More like he's... glad, you think, that Gamzee can have someone even when Karkat can't stand for that someone to be him.

You _knew_ , sort of, but you didn't get it. They are so stupid in love. You don't get how, or why, but "in love" is the only term that'll fit.

"... What are you staring at, bulgeface."

"Nothing," you reply intelligently, and you go back to buckling in the wily sleeping bag and _not_ mulling over quadrants in all earnestness.

Done! Victory. It's absurd how proud you are of such a shitty, easy little thing.

"So what are _you_ doing here?"

You huff in annoyance, but you're still ridiculously stoked over your grand success, so you tell him. "Dave's got his panties in a bunch because he didn't get to bang Terezi because he's a pussy."

If Dave didn't want you sharing his sexual inadequacies with ... okay two select people right now but Kanaya doesn't count she's like sworn to secrecy and maybe Karkat doesn't count either if you buy his silence with kisses later or something, yeah okay that's a plan, but anyway if Dave didn't want you explaining his poor widdle feelings he shouldn't act on them somewhere that might be construed as public. So there. Yes. This is perfect reasoning and you are entirely justified.

You make a note to make the sloppy makeouts extra sloppy, just to make sure Karkat stays bought.

If he even wants to try that again.

You consider his bare legs, at length. Also the swing of his hips as he shuffled past you earlier. Hmm.

Also how he could have chosen to keep just about anyone else company but instead he's in the crawlspace with you. Maybe you weren't the only one vaguely hoping to sneak in some extracurricular tongue wrestling in your schedule.

"... Why the bulge-gargling fuck... what... Okay, I'm officially lost."

"Easy. No space to be alone in the apartment, so they can't bang! ... Is the official excuse. The real reason is he thinks she's gonna see his human junk and laugh in his face. It's that huge ridiculous complex and it doesn't help that now she has normal-for-a-troll junk to compare it to."

Unless -- horror -- Gamzee's junk is proportional to his ludicrous height. That'd kill Dave, you think. (You are not asking Karkat if he knows. There's an infinitesimal chance he might actually tell you.)

Karkat winces a little bit, looks away, but hums in understanding too. "I _see_. Knowing her, I wouldn't even be fucking surprised if she went straight for the pornography the second she had access to one of your computers, so she probably already knows what to expect."

You let out a startled huff of a laugh. "Spoken as someone with _experience_ in googling for porn, I take it."

Karkat's black lips twist in disgust. "You're kidding, like I was so mad with curiosity I was going to risk that on Mr. Egbert's computer. Or even John's, yeah, right, hey asshole, let me borrow your husktop so I can go trawling for digitally enlarged human genitalia."

Hey, you're talking about genitalia. You feel it's a good sign and you should shuffle closer, which you do. You're a bit hesitant about getting in actual touching range of the smuppets, though. You'd swear they're eyeing you lecherously with their little dead eyes.

"... It's weird how Dave's like that, when _you_ apparently don't give a shit about me seeing yours -- uh, eventually. Do you?" He sneaks you a glance, tries to act all casual but you think his cheeks have darkened some. Hard to say because you're blocking some of the light and it's dim enough in here. You hope that means he can't see the pink on your own face either, but you're pretty sure he could, if he squinted.

And then the question catches up, and you ... well, there's nothing to do but shrug.

"Well, no, but I'm not in love with you."

Karkat is silent for a beat. Your guts are doing strange things. What if that was too frank, no but you just started macking out of the blue three days ago, of _course_ there's no ~feelings~ floating around, he's not _stupid_ , but what if, like, he thought you were lying about it being random and just because he was right there and not ugly and you could tolerate the cut of his jibe --

"... There's that."

Phew. "Heh. Yeah. Plus look at the people involved. If I show you and you freak out, shit'll be hilarious."

"Thank you," Karkat retorts dryly.

"But Terezi won't let herself freak out even if she really wants to and that'll be about three quintillions times worse."

He sighs, massages the bridge of his nose. "Humans are all functionally retarded."

"Thank you," you reply the same way he just did, down to the snooty huff. He purses his lips. You think about kissing them. Surely you can tempt him out of the field of smuppets with your hot bod...

"Unless you have a field of razor teeth down there I don't think it'll be that much of a problem. We got used to you guys not having horns at all and that shit is profoundly disturbing."

Of course this is your cue to start humming _Vagina Dentata, what a wonderful phrase_. Karkat stares at you until you stop being human and weird. Or maybe Strider and weird, the two looks are a lot alike.

You give up the humming and arch an eyebrow instead. "Disturbing? Is it really?"

"About as much as a raw, empty eye socket."

"Urgh. So yes." You grimace a little.

You eye him again. He's half reclined on the smuppets and only vaguely searching the pile for lost stuff, looking bored with it.

His feet are bare. Even his toes are clawed, though they're thicker there, blunter at the tips. You want to put your hand on his ankle and you're not entirely sure why. Maybe to see how he's articulated, if the joint works the same way a human's would. You think the underside of his foot might be padded.

Your eyes travel up -- calves, knees, thighs; the shadowy gap of the legs of his shorts -- meet his.

Oh hey look at that the backpack is not well secured. You see about tightening those straps. "So are we... like... having a verbal agreement to... show-and-tell at some point?"

"Yeah," he says after a small eternity, "sure, okay, why the fuck not."

Whoa, what's this, someone smuggled a .44 Magnum in your pants. Which daring reverse-pickpocket could commit that nefarious deed.

You'd investigate that suspicious gift; instead you're investigating the pile. Somehow.

You're on hand and knees in smuppets, buried to the elbow. Karkat is under you. He stares -- challenge -- he's not moving away.

Not breaking eye contact, he reaches up for your face and takes your shades off, and he hangs them from your collar.

You're pressing down on him the next second, mouth opening wet and insistent against his. He kisses back, neck craned, an arm snaking around your neck to pull you down on him. Yes. Fuck yes.

A second later and he has twisted from the hip and shoved you sideway in the smuppets pile, and then he's rolling on top of you. You knock teeth; neither of you cares. You can't find a way to brace and he's on top of you, the weight of his compact body burying you in velvet and foam.

Oh fuck. Thigh pushing against your dick. Yeah okay you're good here. You wrap your arm around his back, fingers digging in his muscles to pull him even closer, make sure he doesn't leave. He presses his hips down onto yours and you choke on a groan. Shit, it's going fast, but -- here? _really_ , here? Aw fuck, why not, why the hell not.

He's so warm, a little furnace, you love that. You groan in his mouth again, tear yourself free of his pointy, gnawing teeth to nibble and kiss your sloppy way to his earlobe. It's messy and too hasty and it's going to end embarrassingly fast and you don't even care. You smooth your hand down his spine; his back curves under your touch, his hips tilt.

His raised ass is pretty much an engraved invitation. Be ungentlemany to ignore it. You grope.

You set your hand on a firm ass cheek and you knead like it's dough and you're making bread for starving orphans, you stroke like it's a cat that'll turn on you all claws and teeth the second you dare stop. You fit your palm across that crack and let your fingers press the cloth taut. You learn that ass by heart like there'll be a test and your whole future rides on it, _c'mon Junior, for the Ivy League_.

If you don't keep blathering inanities in your head you're going to blow a load in your pants. Karkat's face is in your neck and he's panting, warm puffs of breath against your skin, almost silent but not quite. _Hh. Nnh. Hah._ The raunchiest porn was never so hot.

Bang. "Whoops! Sorry guys."

_Holyjesusshittingdicknipples._

You and Karkat spring apart in a flurry of smuppets. " _Harley what the unfresh fuck are you doing here!_ " Karkat screeches, thank fuck it's not only you whose heart is going a mile a minute and for all the wrong reasons.

Jade and her hellbeast are crouching there, her with a knee on the wooden planks and a hand on Bec's ruff. The dog pants happily, tail dragging in the dust, and wanders toward the both of you. You kick away through the pile when his cold nose presses against your bare feet. Gneep. "No, hey, go away, Bec, good dog leave me the fuck alone I swear to fuck if you put your nose in my crotch I will end you--"

"Bec!" Jade calls, but behind the stern tone she's laughing her ass off.

Oh. Right. Jade.

You simmer down, watch her, unsure. She's sitting on the floor now and she pats Bec's head and doesn't say a thing when he returns to the smuppets -- to Karkat, this time around, who watches him with all due suspicion, cheeks still dusky with blood.

Karkat who you were just humping, buried in a mound of obscene felt and foam toys.

In front of your ex-girlfriend.

You have an awesome life. If it were a sitcom there'd be at least a death a month amongst watchers from excessive laughing.

"So. Um. Byrd."

Nooo dear little jegus you were fine with no talking why didn't that last.

"I didn't know you liked boys too!" she exclaims brightly. You kind of want to die.

Ffff. You're not _squirming_ , okay, you have a dildonose lodged awkwardly under your ass is all. "Yeah, like I was going to talk to you about my interest in _you know what let's talk about_. Uh. _Smuppets_. Man, what demented, diseased brain invented those things, I wonder."

She snickers in her hand. "That'd be your brother, you butt."

"Yeah, exactly, so I know what I'm talking about."

Karkat is just sitting there staring at the two of you alternately, knees up and a hand holding a plush monstrosity face down across his crotch oh dear lord you're going to have nightmares. You understand he probably has a hard-on of his own to camouflage but there are lows no one should ever stoop to, jegusfuck.

You _wish_ that were a bonerkill. Alas, today Junior is steel-plated. Not even Harley Interruptus can put a dent in that rampaging juggernaut. _Why are you sixteen._

"Since when are you guys dating?"

Whimper. You give in and prostrate yourself in the depthless mass. (A plastic eye stares at you, soulless but still lecherous somehow.) "Mrnghnphpt."

"Pff."

"We're -- we're not," Karkat says. You didn't know it was possible to hear someone blush, wow. You're not lifting your head out of the pile though. "We're not dating, it's. Ngh. Fooling around. Is all. Uh -- are you... Jade, are you okay with that?"

Why does he sound so nice and careful talking to your ex. Hrgn. She's _your_ ex.

He's _your_ hookup. No awkward flirting with Jade. You manage to straighten up enough for a baleful glare. They both ignore you flawlessly. Assholes. See if you mack on either of them again.

(Oh no, boner, no sandwichy thoughts, no, oh dear Bilious Slick help. Shit, you can't even visualize the universe frog in all his warty glory, all that section of your brain is taken over by two lasciviously entangled brunettes ordering you to hop in the middle already. Ngah.)

"It's fine," she assures Karkat, a smile in her voice. You keep glowering sullenly from your tight little curl around your pocket pork rocket. "Davesprite, stop being a tool and sit up already -- whoops, sorry, I mean Byrd."

... Yeah okay you'll give her a pass this time, she's been calling you Davesprite for three years, it's bound to take time.

"Nope. I'm good. Comfy as shit. Mm. Yep."

You think if she catches a glimpse of your lap circus you will die.

There was a reason you broke up. (Well, okay, several.) The fact that you stayed physically thirteen while she kept growing into a young lady was part of it.

The fact that you'd been cut off at the waist and no matter what you did you could only conjure vague memories of what you should have felt was the main one. You weren't a man with Jade. You were half of a boy.

She didn't mind. You did. Your pride couldn't take it.

Now you've got boners (oh boy do you have them, it's only been thirteen days and you've given up counting them, you are developing a rash) and you don't have a Jade anymore, but yeah, that ship's sailed.

(Also you're not a game artifact/doomed anymore, what is that bullshit.)

"Sorry I interrupted, by the way, I was exploring the streets and all and then I got lost, everything looks the same! So I just had Bec bring me back to where my things were. I didn't know you guys would be -- hehe -- busy." She deposits a couple of shopping bags beside her backpack. "I'll go see if people need help out there!"

She starts pulling the trapdoor open.

"Hey Bro." Dirk's voice wafts in from underneath. "Can I talk to you a minute."

You're across the crawlspace and stomach down by the trapdoor in a second, scattering smuppets. Jade has frozen. You gesture at her meaningfully. She blinks and then glares, grimacing, nods toward her straining arms. She's not going to be able to maintain that hold too long.

Karkat saves the day by shuffling closer and stuffing a plush dong in the crack, all the while rolling his eyes like you're ridiculous and he doesn't know why he indulges you. Jade slowly, cautiously lowers the trapdoor back down. You all shuffle closer to peer through the gap, Jade and Karkat going belly down on the floor same as you, bunch of hypocrites.

Personally you're only interested in the drama because it means they're too distracted to notice your saluting pork sword. Yep. (By the way the floor is hella hard. Ow, your tender dong.)

The three of you jostle for position in silence as Bro slowly gets up from where he was cleaning the fridge, _slowly_ picks up a cloth to wipe his hands, and sloooowly turns around. The amount of ominous is unreal.

"Wow, dude, I didn't think you'd flip out that hard."

You wince. Jade grimaces. Karkat goes _uh oh_ under his breath. Why is Dirk such a tool.

"Wait, rewind, we're talking about you jumping off the roof of a building over twenty stories? That's what we're talking about?"

You only see the top half of the back of Dirk's head and Bro's body from the chest down from here, but you don't need to see their faces. The set of their shoulders and the curl of their hands tells you enough.

"Rocket board?" Dirk goes, and you can tell he's got an eyebrow arched in unimpressed surprise over his shades. Jegusfuck did he come to apologize or to declare World War Three?

You're not sure what to expect. Jade is looking awkward. Karkat is tense like he's trying to brace for when Bro backhands Dirk across the mouth and bounces him against the nearest wall.

Bro just rakes both hands through his hair, and fuck the hat, and fuck the hour he spent styling it. "Excuse me if my _first_ fucking _thought_ when one of my kids _jumps off the roof_ isn't 'oh, rocket board, of fucking course'!"

Dirk rocks back on his heels a tiny little bit.

"You stupid little asshole. I ought to ground you, only you'd be too happy about being forbidden to get out. Shit, maybe I'll take away your internet privileges. No, wait, your hot water privileges, yeah, that's better."

"You're just trying to hoard it for yourself," Dirk shoots back, but he sounds oddly strangled.

Bro stares at him in silence for a couple of seconds, and then he steps in, drapes an arm around Dirk's narrower shoulders. At this angle it's so weird how alike their builds look, even if Bro has twenty years of muscle on him.

And then he predictably noogies the _shit_ out of him.

You could have told Dirk that was going to happen. You could have warned him, bro. Only, nope, he totally deserves it.

You start tugging the smuppet out of the crack. Jade helps you stabilize the trapdoor before it slams down and betrays you.

You all crawl backwards like you're army vets and this is a comfy little muddy trench. And then Jade starts giggling. You bite down on a snicker of your own, but your lips quirk.

Karkat still looks disturbed.

"Is it -- is it really alright? To leave them alone."

You blink at him in the gloom. "Huh?"

"Isn't he going to punish him?"

"He kinda asked for it, dude," you point out, but then Jade presses a hand on her mouth and goes "oh!" and then shuffles to Karkat. She puts a hand on his shoulder, and she looks so soft and nice and _sorry_ , you can only stare.

"It's fine, Karkat, he won't -- I mean, nothing bad will happen, I don't think Dirk will even get a spanking or anything. You heard Bro, he said he was one of his kids, right?"

Karkat chews on his lip for a second, leaning into her hand. "Yeah -- I guess. Yeah. Okay."

You're baffled. "What?" You scowl, annoyed that they're having a secret convo right under your nose (that they're getting along so well.) "Is it about your fucked up obsession that Bro is, I don't even know, some kind of monster of the deep in a human meat suit?"

"Byrd!" Jade snaps, and punches you in the maimed shoulder. Ow. "Stop being an ass!"

"Oh, _I'm_ an ass?" You glare at her. "You think it doesn't wear on Bro to have them all react like he's about to spit and roast them for breakfast every time he moves?"

"Hey," Karkat growls, with funny harmonics under there, and slashes a hand down between the two of you. "Argue a little louder, I think they didn't hear you down there." He turns to you, but he looks tired now, closed off. After the unbridled lust from earlier it bothers you. "Long story short adult trolls are always bad news to trolls under the age of conscription, ie all of us. We know your bro is cool, but he's still older and heavier and stronger and has a shit-ton more experience, and that's a bit hard not to keep close track of, alright? It's not a slight on him. Even Dad -- even Dad freaked me out at first."

Huh. The way his voice cracked there. Huh.

"... Seriously?"

He turns his face away, embarrassed. "Mnrgh."

You blink. "... What about Mom Lalonde?" Karkat grimaces a little. "... Seriously? I mean she's not that big, and besides she's a woman."

Jade punches you in the shoulder again, ow, does she want the rest of your upper arm to fall off too or what. You rub it, glowering.

"Why would her being a woman -- because she's smaller? You're kidding me, right, women are almost worse."

You and Jade stare, you in bafflement and Jade in startled approval. She grins. "Oh?"

"... _Vriska_. Terezi. Kanaya. Women are generally trickier and faster on their feet and they don't dick around before going down to the dismembering business once they've decided on it." He pauses, stares at you. "That looks like you're surprised, what the fuck. I mean, Jade's pretty mellow for a girl but what about Rose?"

You blink long and slow. "Rose's a bit of an outlier, actually."

Jade looks all excited. "Are you telling me that for trolls _girls_ are the _dangerous gender_?"

Karkat shuffles awkwardly away from Bec's curious nose. "They're both dangerous, just not the same way. A guy's much more likely to beat you the hell up if he gets fed up with you, but a girl's more likely to just decide she's done and end you. Are you telling me that for humans girls are _not_?"

Jade fucking _squees_. She crawls closer on hands and knees so she can sit closer to him, knees to knees, and oh dear lord, geek field activated.

"No, no, human women are kind of encultured to -- it goes back to when humans were hunter-gatherers, and the women were the ones who got pregnant and that made them heavy and awkward, and they had to keep their babies close by to feed them for some years afterwards and stuff. It was inconvenient to hunt so they did mostly small traps and fruit gathering and things like that while the guys went out to hunt the bigger stuff, so there's this kind of mindset that the human guys are supposed to do the big heavy work and bring home the meat and the girls are supposed to stay back and cook and take care of the kids, and apparently you have to be gentle or something for that?" She shakes her head like she thinks it's weird but still irrelevant to her whole life experience, but then again she was raised by an old gentleman adventurer-hunter and a dog so you can understand where the bafflement is coming from.

Karkat's eyebrows are up in vaguely disapproving interest. "I guess it makes sense your gross reproductive system would fuck things up in such a stupid way. Cave trolls all hunted, only being descended from hiveguard drones the females hunted in packs and took care of monster duty -- you can't get rid of those if you're unable to collaborate -- and males -- descending from consort drones -- hunted things they could take down alone and fought each other for status and, you know, the chance to spread their genes wider. Mostly it was the females patrolling the territory and bringing back most of the food."

"Ooh, kind of like lions."

"I guess? Anyway some scholars also think it explains why the classical auspisticism has a female middle leaf and the classical kismesissitude skews toward a pair of males, though in real life the numbers don't bear that out. Didn't bear that out. It was all pretty much equal."

You are awash in a sea of geekery. You can feel yourself drowning. Quick, dickery. "So you being team leader was actually kind of _girly_? Huh."

Karkat stops leaning toward Jade to glare at you. Good. He should stop getting along with your ex now, you're getting jealous on both sides, it's really irritating.

"Karkat being the leader wasn't necessarily girly," says Terezi from the trapdoor _holy fuck is that girl a ninja_. "Just being the leader could be pretty manly! Karkat being actively involved in interpersonal relationships and _good at organizing_ was girly. By the way, lunch is ready!"

She disappears with a devilish cackle. Karkat sputters and speed-crawls to the trapdoor. "Now wait a minute! I was _not_ \--!"

Jade giggles as he flings himself overboard. "That was interesting!"

"No it wasn't." Okay maybe a tiny little bit, in a totally academic and you're having trouble seeing why you should care way. It's just, well.

"Aw." She pats your shoulder, eyes twinkling. "I'm sorry I interrupted you getting your mack on." Gnh. _How does she know_. "By the way, if either of you breaks the other one's heart, I'll break your dicks!"

She's gone in a swirl of skirts. You stay alone like a tool in the gloom and the dust, ass planted in felt horrors. At least now your boner is asleep. Maybe you can risk going out in public.

Bec starts digging happily in the rest of the smuppet pile, showering you in plush obscenity.

Okay, now your boner is slaughtered.


	9. 9: still day thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Crash Standing, Or, An Account Of The Post-Game Life of One Byrd Sprite Strider, Aged Sixteen" Presents:  
> a Succint Yet Accurate Summary in the Form of Haiku:
> 
> LO, THERE IT COMES BACK  
> INAPPROPRIATE BONER  
> FUCKHELL NOT AGAIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 is being weird, making pesterlogs tiny. D: not my fault! i haven't touched my workskin.

Flying by plane is just about the most boring thing you have ever experienced in your life, and considering you once spent three years of your life stuck on a ship surrounded by void, some more void on top, and a little more void in both front and back, that's saying something.

Granted, the ship was large. Granted, it was well-populated. Granted, your then-girlfriend could pop planets out of her pockets and send you a-questing whenever you got bored of the corridors.

It was still _three years_. Right now you've been on the plane four hours and you feel like you've entered Battleship: Year Four.

Your other self is the Dude of Time; you know from time shit. Someone is definitely messing the hell out of this flow. Goddamn US Airways.

You wish Kanaya were here to chat with -- no metaphorical baggage to drag on with her, it's fantastic -- but alien on a plane, yeah, no. You bet she doesn't share your ...

... small hidden compartment behind tons of furniture stuffed with a restless Jade, a slobbery dog, a slobbery Terezi, her inappropriate clown kismesis, and his moirail with which he's in the middle of a fight over said Terezi and they still haven't talked it out.

No, actually you bet she _does_ share your wish.

You don't even get a window. You could have, but Rose signaled you to let Dave "win" it from you, so she could corral him, and then Roxy took the aisle seat on that row. You guess so they can chat whenever Rose isn't busy skullfucking Dave. You can hear them murmuring sometimes but always too low to catch anything.

The next row's window you left to Dirk, because there was no way on Earth or Skaia or any of the planets he was going to stand seeing people come and go next to him for hours on end in a small enclosed space. Also, he is _not piloting the plane_ , this is obviously the best reason ever for an attack of nerves. Control freak.

So you're basically sitting between your brother's younger clone, who might as well not be there he is so busy staring holes into the clouds, and your ectomom. Who you've never really talked with before. She's easygoing and hasn't asked any getting-to-know-you cliché bullshit like what college you think you're going to (SBURB U, major in Doomed Timelines, minor in Redundancy, Uselessness and Being a Drag) or whether you play the harmonica (no, it is for douches,) but you were so damn glad when she started yawning ten minutes in. She'd been driving all the way down from New York, and you suppose one short night in puppet hell followed by packing and airport shenanigans isn't really restful.

Means you're bored out of your goddamn skull, and have been kicking Rose's seat for the last ten minutes. It's almost a relief when your bladder starts screaming and you can justify pulling yourself out of your seat and wriggling past Rose's mom's knees.

She wakes up, mumbles; you lean in. She's been dozing but never very comfortably. "Move to my seat," you suggest, "assholes keep stomping by, you'll sleep better." Also maybe you'll get some vague enjoyment out of people-watching. She mumbles something that sounds like agreement; you turn to find that damn bathroom.

Your sleeve flaps. It's annoying. Should pin it up. You make a note.

There's a queue, of course.

There's a little kid in the queue. She's not noisy, so hey, whatev's. You make a duck-mouthed, arched-eyebrows face at her behind your shades; she dodges behind her mom. You're obviously not looking at a career in child entertainment.

They go, and then an eon afterwards you go, and if you never have to manage a plane toilet and your stupid shorts and your junk at the same time ever again it'll be too soon. You wash your hand, trundle back, oh hey the kid's one row back on the opposite side of the aisle. She's still staring. You arch an eyebrow and then the other to make a wave. It's a complicated skill. She giggles! Score.

Wow. You are _so bored_.

You flop in the outside seat that Rose's mom vacated, pretend you don't see the kid leaning out into the aisle.

"Hey umm mister?"

"Mnh?"

"Where's your arm?"

Oh hey you'd almost given up getting that question. Funny how suddenly you're acutely aware that at least three people on your row and Rose's are Totally Not Listening Oh My That Book Is Fascinating Isn't It I Am So Engrossed In It Please Do Keep Having That Conversation.

The kid's parents look horrified and about to snatch her back and berate her, but seriously? The horror faces are more offensive than the nosiness.

"I lost it in a sword battle against a devil dog," you say, serious as the grave. "Sliced it clean off, just like that, shhhick."

It's sort of almost true. Goddamn Sburb program-to-person translation glitches.

The kid looks suitably impressed -- which is to say, mildly so, which is good because your performance in that fight was passable at best and then you lost and got Bro killed, so. "Oh, okay. Did you--"

"Marian!" whisper-hisses the nearest parent. The kid gets disappeared along the aisle with a little cry of protest. Her mom gives you an embarrassed laugh. She keeps pointedly Not Looking at your stump.

"Thanks for not telling her the truth. I know most amputations are -- ah, sorry, I -- sorry."

Most amputations are the result of some kind of disease, or, at your age, probably Stupid Shit on a bike at high speed that results in a major case of road rash plus pulverized bones and shredded tendons -- that or getting caught in machinery. Yes you did look that shit up, you're a ghoulish little bastard, okay. You'd blame it on the crow but you were like that from the start.

You shrug, making sure to make the sleeve shift around your stump. _Look at that hideous barely-there scar tissue, your almost-god commands you! bwahaha._ (She does, with guilty fascination.) "No problem," you say, upright _neighborly_ , and then you add, "though I really did lose it in a sword fight against a devil dog. Kind of. I was a crow at the time."

She stares at you. Her eyelids do that twitchy thing where someone really wants to look away but doesn't know how rabid you are and how likely to pounce if they show fear. You keep staring back, perfectly expressionless. You feel like your whole life training of cool with Bro was all for this precise moment.

Rose's mom snickers beside you and thwaps your shoulder with the back of her hand. "Stop being a brat, you brat. Trade? You left your bag back there."

You were trying to be nice and shield her from the noise so she could sleep, but as a matter of fact yes, you did leave your cell phone and water bottle and everything beside Dirk's seat. Be easy enough to just pass it along but -- "Aw, it's fine -- uh _mom_."

You barely stumble over the word. She smiles, eyes crinkling. They're hazel, of all possible colors. So weird. "Keep your brother company. C'mon, go."

She gets up so you have no choice but to wriggle under her and slink back into the middle seat. Alas and woe. She immediately strikes up a conversation about how much of a pain children are and oh but her Rosie and her Dirkie are such well-behaved children just like little Marian she was very sweet really no worries but the other three not so much let's hope yours doesn't turn as she grows. You can't see the other woman anymore but you can tell she's trying not to boggle that a woman who looks like Romy Lalonde has five teenage children.

Dirk deigns to lift his forehead away from the glass and look at you. You shrug. He grunts.

You almost think he's going to dismiss the whole thing, but he's still looking at you. You arch an eyebrow over the rim of your shades. "What?"

"Give any thoughts to getting that prosthesis, bro?"

You stiffen all over, so fast it pulls and aches in your back. Something like heartburn is coiling under your ribs.

"Mind your own fucking business."

A fake arm. To fake normal with. To hide the stump away, lest _people_ get _uneasy_. Yeah fucking right.

Dirk is observing you from the corner of his stupid shades. You refuse to turn his way.

(It aches where the roots of your wings were.)

"Just asking, bro."

"Yeah, well, just don't."

If it were Dirk he'd just shrug it off and carry on the most efficient way there is. _Fuck_ Dirk. You jam on your headset and spend the next half-hour brooding and pretending to watch the movie on TV.

You hate your own feelings on the topic of your missing bits. Some moment you'll be fatalistically _fine_ with it -- okay, could have been way worse, it's just one arm, you got a spare, who the fuck cares -- and then you'll flip straight into rage, into wanting to shove people's faces in it, yeah, look at me, fucking _look_ \-- and then they look and nope, need to hide and curl up and whine now because they did exactly what you dared them to. You can't fucking stand yourself ever since Sburb kicked you out into reality with the rest of these assholes instead of turning you off and trashing you like the bunch of obsolete coding and superfluous spare parts you now were.

You want to be normal again and you want to _shit_ on normal, you want to be a bird and a katana and a sprite again and _that_ feels normal, that is the benchmark  You want --

You want to not suddenly hear Roxy mewl, what the heck.

That was a very realistic mewl. So is the sudden scrabbling and sotto voce swearing, from Roxy and then from Rose, the fuck?

Dave pops up over the back of his seat, dumps something white on Dirk's lap with a hissed " _Catch!_ ", dodges back down out of sight.

You stare at the very non-plush, very alive, very displeased white cat on your parallel universe-brother's lap. The cat stares back at you. Dirk is now swearing in turn.

"The fuck, dude?"

"G-cat," Dirk explains, which explains exactly jack shit. The little hellbeast meows again. It's _loud_. "Fuck, since when is the little shit even--"

The cat scratches at Dirk's arm, draws blood. Dirk hisses between his teeth, tries to hug it to his chest; it pops out of his hold like a cork made of fur rags and bloodstained hooks and then it's on your lap.

You're probably expected to attempt to hold it in turn but like hell you are touching it. Dear jegus do you hate cats. And dogs. Any animal that isn't a bird, basically, they all suck and have too many teeth. Your hand stays clenched on your armrest, thankyouverymuch.

The cat decides to sit there and start grooming. Okay, no. You bounce your knee a little to shoo it off; it lets itself flump against your stomach and lays there in a casual, smug little half-circle. Gnrgh. "Dirk, get it off me. Get the fucking thing off me. Get it--"

Dirk leans in. Awesome.

Dirk untucks your shirt. Less awesome. "Okay, dude, this is so not the time for casual inces--"

Dirk pulls the bottom of the shirt on top of the cat, so its horribly ticklish fur now presses all over your tender, exposed stomach _oh dear lord does he want you gutted_??

"Dirk, you assbutt--"

He leans farther in and pulls up your empty sleeve, and then he looks up past you and goes "'Sup" at the stewardess looking down at you with a dafuk expression on her face.

You make your face blank and attempt to look as pregnantly amputated as possible. By some miracle of Nature the cat doesn't move and betray its presence -- apart from breathing right against your clenched stomach and tickling you with its whiskers, awgh.

"Ah -- my apologies, I thought I heard...?"

"Mrow," Momlonde goes, and giggles drunkenly.

"She does that," Dirk deadpans. After a few more embarrassed mumbles the stewardess leaves. Dirk and Mom go about constructing a wall between you and her. The cat starts kneading way too close to your balls, claws getting caught in your jeans. You are so not okay with this.

"She's gone," Lalonde the elder whispers, suddenly unblitzed.

Dirk relaxes into his seat. You don't. The thing is vibrating at you. Might explode or something. Not conducive to relaxation.

"Why, hello, pretty thing," Mom whispers as she leans in to peer down your collar at the cat.

"Welcome to Cougartown," Dave says from his perch over the backrest. "All passengers onboard undo their belts and drop trou for discerning elder ladies..." Rose is peering over as well, Roxy leaning in from the outside. They both giggle.

"I'm disowning you all," you inform them. "By the way. If you were wondering. Also someone get that thing out of my shirt or I swear to god I will open a window and punt it right the fuck out of the plane."

Roxy snerks and ruffles your hair, the witch. "You don't want to do that, it'd probably teleport you right off the plane."

You eye the weird lump in your shirt. Okay, cool, you have a First Guardian on your lap.

The fuck is this universe, that there's two of them.

Then again, you knew from the start it wasn't a perfect copy of yours, not only because of the people who should not live in it yet still do somehow, but also the fact that Jane is the friggin' suburban heiress to a multinational corporation and there are weird alien monsterparents all over Jade's island.

Explaining an appearing cat is one thing, wouldn't be too hard to bullshit something about how it slipped in someone's carry-on and security had a brain fart while it went through, but explaining a disappearing teenager?

Not that you care much about how much trouble they'd be in, explaining your disappearance, you'd be too busy being utterly fucked about suddenly being stranded halfway across the world. One good thing you can say about Bec is he knows _go fetch_ implies _and bring it the fuck back_.

Pretty much the only good thing, actually.

Romy probably would be interested in stroking fur, but she has reluctantly seated herself with her back half-turned to you so her body can provide more of a barrier to curious looks. Rose manages to convince Roxy not to try petting the kitty lest someone notice, and Dirk doesn't seem interested in fondling the beast.

There's a reason your thoughts are comprised of about one masturbation metaphor per second. That reason is a warm soft ticklish _purring_ weight on your crotch.

You miss when you were all sprite tail from the waist down and had zero hormones to mess with your -- okay no, even with the Most Morally Dubious Boner Award hanging over your head like the wrongest Damocles sword ever you can't manage to wish you didn't have a working dong and actually mean it.

Why are you sixteen. Whyyyyy are you sixteen.

Why are you sixteen and surrounded by your bro and your mom and their watchful eyes.

You spend the last hour of flight enjoying your complimentary awkward blue balls and the fondly administered pinprick claw holes through your skin. G-cat pops out of existence the second the captain announces that you're approaching the airport, proving that providing a warm, terrified lap for several hours is zero guarantee that it'd bother hanging around to potentially save you from a crash landing.

Cats are all fucking assholes. It's decided; you prefer dogs.

\--

Dogs are all fucking assholes.

You stare at the pinkening evening sky over you, sunset clouds and waves lapping at the pier nearby and a huge fatassed furmonster sitting on your chest and trying to nuzzle your tender neck to death, and you wonder, why. Why you. Why now. There is no god.

There are some gods, but they're also assholes, and currently standing around your fallen form and laughing down at you with all their beaver teeth.

"Bec, get off -- come on, boy!"

Bec does not give a damn, Bec is busy exploring your neck and chest with his longass muzzle and all the pointy teeth in it. Oh yay, you smell of cat. You're going to get savaged out of sudden territorial fury, you can see it coming from here.

He licks your face. Phbbt.

Jade manages to haul her monster off you. You sit up, glower tiredly at John who's holding out his hand and still laughing. You take his hand, though. If there's a joy buzzer in it, after all, there's a harbor only ten steps to the left for all your dunking needs.

He hauls you up and nothing happens save for a sudden hug attack where he tries to break your ribs. You bat halfheartedly at his back for a few seconds before surrendering to your fate.

"Oh, lover, we meet again," you drone _right_ in his ear. "I missed you so."

The asshole one-ups you by cupping your face and oh shit is he going to dip you--

Yep, he is.

"Carmencita!"

"Señor Strider!"

"Carmencita!

"Do we know them?" Rose asks Dirk blandly. His arm around Jane's shoulders, Dirk stares back, and then he shoulders his luggage and the blood of your blood turn their backs on you, hauling Jane along. Roxy and Jade stay there, laughing.

Dave stays here too but mostly staring.

You tap John's shoulder (not nervous at all at the thought that he might choose right now to let go.) "Okay, stud, let me up, the other woman won't let you have your maid sandwich if you don't butter her up too."

"Could we have a mud fight, but with butter instead?" John asks as he thankfully pulls you back upright; he grins at Dave, eyebrows waggling full-bore. You elbow him in the ribs and follow the Strider-Crocker-Lalonde sandwich to say hi to Jane, who you don't really know, but if it means you won't keep having asshole 'hah, he said hello to me first' thoughts in Dave's direction or thinking deep down about Karkat's ridiculous shipping grids...

"Yo, Crocker, nice canoe," you say blandly, eyeing the wall of white taking up almost all of the pier.

Jane is plump and girl-next-door cute, and her eyes might be John-colored somewhat but the shape of them is all Jade. She's not as tan as either of them, or as tan as what you remember of Jake English, but still a couple shades darker than your own borderline albino pallor, darker than her used, papery old-lady skin. She looks a little hesitant, looking at you, and for a moment you miss Nanna's crinkly-eyed, gently teasing greetings.

You kind of wish Nanna Egbert hadn't technically been dead almost as long as you've been alive, some days. But it's not like you didn't understand what living on borrowed time meant.

"Ah, yes, thanks, it's not really mine, it's a company ship. They just, I guess they let the executives use it sometimes."

Dirk's arm is still around her and he watches you through his shades and he's so expressionless you know it means _if you're not on your best fucking behavior imma punt you in the bay, bitch_. You had no intention to be otherwise, so you purse your lips and you give your best butler bow.

"Madame. Thanks for having us on it anyway."

"You are so much more polite than the other Strider boys. What do you want?" she asks, eyes gone narrow in suspicion. You pout.

"Nothing at all. Just like where's the best rooms cause I need dibs, you understand, I need 'em to rub in Dave's face and also John's and stuff. Possibly Karkat's."

Which reminds you.

You scan the pier and the side of the ship, though you already know you ain't gonna see any trolls in a semi-public area in daylight. Beside the bridge John's dad and Bro and Lalonde Senior are having a nice little chat; you thought Jane's dad would be there but he's nowhere in sight.

The ship is actually a cruise yacht -- not one of those monstrosities that are seven or eight stories tall... nah, this one's only about, oh, two or three stories tall, tops. From nose to ass it's almost three buses long. It's _huge_.

It's also going to host all of you for another month and a half, two months; you're pretty sure by this time next week you'll be pacing in circles and snapping at people like a bunch of hippos in a kiddy pool just like back home.

"Where are the horny ones?" you ask. Jade snorfles as she comes up behind you.

"That was a really bad way to put it!"

"That was the _best_ way to put it."

Only now you're thinking Makara-Pyrope blackrom thoughts again, awgh, god, no. You make yourself think Karkat thoughts instead. _Hey grubfucker, show me your human equipment_. You imagine him all grumpy and glaring and completely serious, it's more funny than intriguing. And now you've missed the answer, whoops. "Come again?"

"You're a pig," Rose concludes. Welp.

Now either you let it stand and have no answer to your question, or you come out about not having meant that as a comeback _no honest it slipped your mind_ and look like an uncool twerp.

"Once it's nightfall there won't be much distance left to cross," Jade says. Phew. You smartly deduce that it means they're holed up somewhere close, maybe the truck or maybe some shack out of the way; it's a pretty big port thingy, surely there's hiding places no one uses around here. Okay, good 'nough.

Dadbert comes back from some kind of office, except Dadbert is still with Bro so this is probably Crockpop instead. Holy shit, they're even dressed the same. John's dad has a plain gray-blue button-up shirt on and Jane's has these really thin white stripes but the shade is exactly the same. So are the hats. (The godforsaken _hats,_ dear lord.) Can one of them pick up his pipe and the other one switch to cigarettes or chewing tobacco or whatever maybe? Grow facial hair? (wait, which one would be the evil twin?) Gain a very manly scar?

Rose says "Hello, Mister Crocker" so you and Dirk chorus a "Yeah, hi." He dips his hat at the bunch of you and smiles, and finally, _finally_ ushers everyone onboard.

When you cross the gangway you're kind of excited, actually. You bet it's going to be swank as hell.

\--

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

TG: hey bro hows it going in the land of cramped and dank  
TG: pretty well i bet huh and here we are utterly miserable in  
TG: id say in the lap of luxury but thatd be misleading re how deep in said lap we are  
TG: id make up a comparison with a tijuana titty bar but youd fail to be impressed enough im sure needless to say its very luxurious  
TG: balls deep would also fail to impress you on account of the lack of reference you have re where human guy balls are even located in general and the size of my man tool in particular but just trust me you should be impressed  
TG: and also slobbering  
CG: TEREZI IS READING OVER MY SHOULDER.  
CG: BY THE WAY.  
TG: its cool girl needs to know what shes getting into enough strider sausage to feed small third world nations gotta plan for that shit in advance  
CG: SHE SAYS, I QUOTE, "HEHEHE YOU TASTE DELICIOUSLY RED, MISTER TANGERINE. A BLOOD ORANGE MAYBE."  
CG: AND NO, I'M NOT DOING YOUR STUPID QUIRK, TEREZI.  
CG: YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE, BRO.  
TG: goddamn it cant a man mention his mantool to other men in totally no homo peace  
TG: go away terezi ill tell your manbitch to log in so you can nag him okay  
CG: SHE'S GONE.  
CG: BY THE WAY. IF YOU TYPE, SAY, OR EVEN *THINK* THAT ASININE *NO HOMO* AT ME EVER AGAIN I AM STUFFING YOUR HANDHELD COMMUNICATION DEVICE UP YOUR WASTE CHUTE SO FAR UP IT'LL START GETTING USEFUL TO TRAIN YOUR TONGUE TO TOUCH-TYPE.  
TG: okay fine yes homo  
TG: shit was totally homo okay are you happy  
CG: I AM NEVER HAPPY.  
TG: i am so homo for u sensei u dont even no  
TG: plz touch me in my no no places  
CG: OH DEAR BARFING DWARFNUGGETS, I DID NOT THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR YOUR QUIRK TO GET ANY MORE TOOLISH. WHY DID I NOT REALIZE I WAS ONCE AGAIN EGREGIOUSLY WRONG.  
TG: all over my no no places  
TG: with ur...  
TG: *no no thing*  
CG: BAM! MAKEOUT PRIVILEGES REVOKED.  
TG: aw  
TG: come on you know you were totes smiling  
TG: at least inside  
CG: I NEVER SMILE EITHER, WHETHER INSIDE, OUTSIDE, OR UPSIDE DOWN.  
TG: thats a lie you turn your smiles upside down all the time one day your face will be stuck like that  
CG: WHAT IF IT'S ALREADY HAPPENED, AND NOW YOU'RE MOCKING MY OBVIOUS DISABILITY. HOW COULD YOU, ASSHOLE.  
TG: haha  
TG: i can mock it if i have it thats the rule  
TG: facialstucks assemble  
TG: what if i keep telling you all about how swank this place is and how much youre gonna love it once youre out of your hidey hole  
CG: YOU MEAN THAT TANGLE OF AWKWARD TROLLISH LIMBS, ABJECT MISERY, AND FESTERING SEXUAL TENSION?  
CG: GOOD PLAN, KEEP REMINDING ME I'M STILL STUCK IN HERE AND ... YOUR CASUAL HOOKUP ACCESS WILL STILL BE REVOKED! BUT YOU MIGHT MANAGE TO GAIN BLACK QUADRANT PRIVILEGES INSTEAD.  
CG: KEEP AT IT, BYRD, I KNOW YOU CAN REACH THOSE HEIGHTS OF DOUCHE.  
TG: bluh i done told you i aint into bloodletting kisses and nonstop snarling seriously vantas stop trying to shunt me there  
TG: no no and also no  
TG: i dont get why you keep bringing it up either cause seriously now what kind of rival would i make atm im a maimed whiny lump of sad and suck the only thing i have going for me is my great ass and cocksucking mouth  
CG: THAT  
CG: KIND OF SOUNDED LIKE YOU'RE ANGLING FOR FLUSH.  
CG: VERY UNSUBTLY SO. BY THE WAY.  
CG: ER.  
TG: oh hell  
TG: can we just  
TG: idk not complicate that with feels and quadranty bullshit i like your ass its a cute and pert ass i like bantering with you its fun and all can we just  
TG: keep doing that  
TG: im not saying let me use you and leave you forever and ever amen i just  
CG: WANT TO WAIT AND SEE HOW IT GOES?  
TG: yeah  
TG: do you even like me in a romantic way dude i mean if we werent macking would you even look at me that way  
TG: karkat  
CG: SORRY. JUST THINKING.  
CG: NO, YOU'RE RIGHT. I'D PROBABLY STILL BE SEEING YOU AS STRIDER BIS.  
TG: wow ouch  
CG: DON'T YOU WHINE AT ME.  
CG: YOU'RE A LOT NICER.  
CG: WELL. A BIT NICER.  
CG: I KNOW DAVE CAN BE NICE TO PEOPLE HE REALLY CARES FOR BUT I WAS NEVER ON THAT LIST. THAT WAS MOSTLY TEREZI AND ROSE.  
TG: jade too were marshmallows for jade then again shed tenderize us with a truncheon herself if we werent so  
CG: YOU'RE JUST NICER IN GENERAL. A TINY LITTLE BIT. CONSIDERING HOW LOW DAVE'S LEVEL WAS, IT'S STILL SIGNIFICANT.  
TG: do you have any idea how lame  
TG: how *emasculating* it is to be known as *the nice one*  
TG: here i was ready to start in on a sexy goatee and nope cut down by karkats razor wit  
TG: baby butt cheeked for life  
CG: NICE BOYS GET LESS TEETH AND MORE ASS GROPING.  
TG: im in  
TG: sign me up for sainthood vatican here i come  
TG: pope strider in his popemobile puffpuffing down the street one gold plated fake hand waving at the crowd genially the other hand on his vantas shaped choirboys tender ass  
CG: WHAT MAKES YOU THINK IT'LL BE YOUR HAND DOING THE GROPING?  
TG: ...  
TG: ok i have no repartee here only unf  
TG: all onboard her majestys ship the buttsploration  
TG: destination the unexplored strider chasm  
TG: the mystery chocolate whirlpool  
CG: H3H3H3 YOUR3 SO B4D 4T S3XT1NG  
TG: HOLY FUCK TEREZI GET OFF KARKATS HANDLE ALREADY!!!!

\--

Terezi killed the mood dead, so you both join a chaotic and overfull memo of everyone talking over each other and complaining that they want to be gone already bluh bluh why do we have to wait until morning (GEE, HARLEY, BECAUSE YOUR HUMAN PILOTS SUCK AND DON'T SEE IN THE DARK, AND WE SUPERIOR TROLLS CAN'T PILOT INFERIOR HUMAN CRAFTS.) You're wasting time waiting for darkness.

You get into a side chat with Kanaya and she tells you all about how tempted she was to auspisticize for Gamzee and Terezi even though they never did anything but elbow each other a bit when a sharp turn pushed them onto each other, because at this short distance the vibes were choking everything, and how Gamzee kept throwing Karkat hugely embarrassing puppy eyes -- she thinks maybe Karkat should throw in the towel and dump him clean, you think she's hoping to catch Karkat on the rebound, the naughty minx, she says you're wrong and a lying liar and also John and Gamzee could also work pretty well pale what do you think, you think John's nonexistent diamond is goddamned well going to stay yours thanks so very much. You gossip like a pair of mean girls and it's hilarious.

Gamzee gets you in a side chat and says nothing but honk. You're vaguely terrified.

Finally, it is time. John and his father go down to one of the lower decks (oh lord the ship has several decks, all wide open to the horizon and gorgeous, you are never letting go of that decadent beach lounge thing) somewhere at the ass end of the ship, and the lights along the pier flicker and go dark. Four horned shadows hurry around wooden boxes and barrels and over coils of rope and jump across the dark, watery gap, one-two-three- _come on Karkat don't chicken out now_ four, and then they're scrambling up the ladder with their claws going clink clink clink very quietly under the noise of the lapping waves. You lose sight of them, until you drag yourself off your deck chair and wander to the lounge room, where two toothy derps are hugging two trolls apiece.

Rose taps Jade's shoulder and frees Kanaya from her embrace and they proceed to smooch, urgh, and Terezi goes bounding into Dave's arms and then drags him straight to the adults, grinning like a challenge, hello, you are so kind, yes, gorgeous place. John keeps Gamzee's arm slung across his shoulders like an affectionate noose.

You wonder how they'd all react if you walked up to Vantas and dipped him in front of everyone. Nah, you'd drop him on his ass, and then he'd cut you off. Makeouts can be had later on. Sounds kind of interesting to keep it discreet, anyway, even though with Terezi and Jade in the know it's not gonna stay under wraps long. You just sneak him a wink, and go teach Kanaya a special gossipchump fistbumpshake.

It's pretty cool and a bit of a relief -- not that you worried at all -- and you're more than ready to settle in and have the exhausted, chat-until-three-in-the-morning fiesta that the adults have already given up trying to prevent.

And then the cops ask if they can come aboard.


	10. 10: (evening of day thirteen)

You don't even need Bro's fingers flicking behind his hip as a signal; you can hear steps over your head, going straight for the staircase. The trolls went to look for bedrooms and of fucking course now it's the worst possible time they're coming back. You're rolling off the couch like a panther dropping off its branch onto some tasty prey in a second, and then you're flashstepping across the ridiculously luxurious whisky tasting lounge or whatever rich people call their living rooms, faster than you've managed since you became a sprite, fast enough to be invisible.

Bonk.

"What was that noise?" the lady cop -- there's a lady cop and a dudebro cop -- inquires. You rub at your smarting shoulder and scramble up on your feet in the safety of the curling staircase. Fuck braking, that's what stumps are for. Ow.

The second impact comes in less than two seconds: your face with Karkat's insufficiently padded ribcage. _Ow_. You flail, teetering back on socked feet, teeth desperately clenched. A gray hand reaches past and snatches your collar, pulling you back upright.

"Byrd, what--"

" _Shh_ ," you hiss, and press your hand on Kanaya's mouth.

She was bracing Karkat's weight, even as she held you up; you unbalance her, too, and the three of you topple in slow motion, Kanaya and Karkat's claws leaving (thankfully silent) gouges in the wooden walls as they try and fail to get them deep enough to brake.

You're glad you didn't fall back down toward the open lounge; fake potted plants and random stained glass screens might obscure your features some, but they won't obscure your presence, or the fact that two of you are gray.

That, and two densely muscled trolls pancaking you on the floor... You don't care how thick the rug is, it'd be really unpleasant.

You squirm to brace your feet on the edges of the staircase on the last step and take your weight off them; Karkat looks like he's only keeping his teeth clenched shut on a pack of real fucking uncouth words by pure miracle, and Kanaya is wincing in mild pain.

" _Cops!_ " you whisper to them. Blank looks, blinks. Shit, what was that thing Terezi always -- " _Somethinglacerators?_ "

Their eyes widen. They freeze, and then Karkat cautiously pushes himself up some so that Kanaya can pull her legs free. She inches to a higher step. In perfect time with each other the three of you do the sloth bear version of getting back up and climbing back.

"--seems to be the problem, Officers?"

Okay, shit, escape or stay and eavesdrop, maybe they won't even let them come onboard... yeah right, and then if something smells weird to the cops you might well end up stopped in territorial waters. Blargharghnargh.

"... might have picked up hitchhikers... seen a group of what seemed to be children or teenagers sneaking onboard."

Aw, fuck. You exchange dark looks with Karkat and Kanaya.

There's no getting them off the ship and hiding on the docks -- even if you can manage to dodge the cops, someone saw the trolls come onboard and if you know people at all they're now avidly waiting for shots to be fired, their eye glued to the crack in their blinds. (Okay, to be fair it's likely the port security that called the cops on you, so more likely their eye is glued to their surveillance screens.)

"Are you sure they didn't see one of our kids?" Mom Lalonde asks, politely puzzled, and then she laughs. "We do have a crapton of them."

"Oh?" the cop replies politely.

"Oh yeah. Kids! Heel!"

You are personally feeling free to ignore that call, but you and your trolls flatten yourselves to the inside wall of the staircase as Dirk, Roxy and Jane tromp down. They eye you weird, but they must see on your expressions that something is going on; they don't let on.

"You called, Romy?" Jane inquires politely.

"Yeah, those officers are looking for teenagers. I figure we can provide, haha. Where's the rest of the pack?" You think she turns back to the cops, her voice goes a little muffled. "We've got mine and Burt's kids--"

(" _Who the fuck is Burt_ ," Karkat hisses. " _Forget that name if you want to live_ ," you hiss back.)

"There's like five of them, Dirkie and Roxy are seventeen, and here is Davey who's sixteen, and so are Rosie and my baby chick who are... somewhere else, I don't know, they're all sixteen. Triplets, you know."

(Kanaya pinches her lips. " _Did she just rename you baby cluckbeast_ ," she asks, sympathetic. You close your eyes and bonk your head against the back of your hand. It'd be the wall if you didn't need to muffle the sound.)

"And this is Janey who's Phil's daughter, and ... somewhere else there's also John who's my Paulie's, and Jade who's their cousin."

Well. Momlonde's giving you an occasion to gain some breathing room and figure out a plan, already. You point up. Kanaya stealthily moves back onto the upper deck. Karkat scrambles awkwardly to follow. At least he's quiet, too.

You can't even appreciate the ass he presents you with. Life's unfair.

You crawl to the open door to the sundeck across thick rugs on hands and knees. Voices drift up from there; Mom's mostly, she's apparently decided to go full Dumb Blonde on them. "... wouldn't be surprised if ... was one of them they saw..."

You crawl back a little, back to where Kanaya is crouching with her back to the staircase's wall, so she'll hear anyone who comes up and give you time to scramble.

"Okay, plan?" you whisper. "Gotta warn Terezi and Gamzee--"

Karkat rolls his eyes a bit and decaptchalogues a PDA. "John's," he mutters back, already typing away, "keeps losing it."

Your Ishades warn you a new memo has been opened, creatively titled LEGISLACERATORS ONBOARD, *HIDE*, YOU DAFT FUCKERS.  Okay, you guess Terezi and Gamzee are warned now. Hopefully they're not too busy christening some innocent piece of vital machinery or repurposing a bucket-looking Ming vase to read it.

Kanaya crouches with one knee down on the floor like a ninja in heels; she has a tube of lipstick in her raised hand, ready to be slashed down. Uh oh.

"I'll stick with you guys," you say, "it's okay if they see me, I can be a distraction. But did you find anywhere you could hide?"

Karkat is biting his lip. "How thorough are they going to be? How many--"

"Two of them only, and they won't tear paneling off the walls or nothing, they have no warrant and Crockercorps would be pissed off, but I dunno." Shit, okay, brain, start. You did way more dangerous things than that.

You were allowed to try to kill enemies if they caught you, though, in the game. And from Kanaya's steady hold on her lipstick, if push comes to shove she will shove first and not ask questions.

Karkat's fingers are twitching like he's gripping the hilt of something that isn't there.

Yet.

Shit.

"Guys. Guys -- we can _not_ kill them. Like. I'm not kidding. We kill them, we will be in a _world_ of shit."

Karkat groans, bends back to the PDA.

CG: POST-SCRIPTUM: ABSOLUTELY NO KILLING THEM. STEALTH IS THE NAME OF THE GAME. AS OF RIGHT NOW WE ARE LAUGHSSASSINS.    
CG: WITHOUT THE -SSASSIN PART. YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT I MEAN. 

"... sorry... know it's late, but we'd still like to give it a quick look..."

You can't tell by ear if it's Crockpop or Dadbert, but logic tells you Crockpop since it's kind of his ship. "Very well. But not too long, these children have a bedtime coming up and a long day tomorrow."

You scramble back to Karkat and pull on his elbow until he follows, gesture at Kanaya. She whirls around the blind spot of the staircase and jogs silently toward the prow of the ship, the two of you on her heels. You make a little noise on the wooden floors; you hope it won't be loud enough to be heard over the sea and all the people chatting downstairs. You dodge quickly onto another sundeck, hesitate. A staircase goes up, a staircase goes down.

Up might put more distance between the lot of you but unless Bec suddenly revivifies it's a dead end. Down -- you can't tell if they're checking the whole bottom deck first or if they're trying the staircases or what--

TT: The policemen have split up.    
TT: The woman has stayed by the gangway to question us; Mr. Crocker is showing her partner around the lower deck.    
TT: They are not on high alert, as they believe some of us have merely invited friends aboard for a party, or as a short-sighted attempt to take a few people on vacation with us. We are doing nothing to discourage this theory.

The three of you wait, huddled against a wall. It's dark on this side of the ship; you're outside and there's a fresh sea breeze picking up and dying at random intervals. The deck is striated with port lights, so you can guess at deck chairs and random stairs going two steps down into useless but decorative pits, but in front of the three of you it's dark. You're too close to the town to see stars.

You wonder if the trolls can see any better than you do. Sure hope so.

Karkat's on the wrong side and besides he'd take it as you needing reassurance, and that's not it at all, it's the other way around okay, so it's Kanaya's hand you squeeze, breathing through your nose.

If you were allowed to fight, you'd almost welcome the adrenaline, but having to keep from being seen, heard -- that's more stressful than knowing you might have to fight. If the trolls are seen, it's a loss. You can't count on the cops thinking they're hallucinating it. Even if they think it's makeup they'll want to call their parents to come pick them up, or at least make sure they have permission to be here, and when the lot of them turn out not to have any of that...

Kanaya squeezes back. She's not shaking at all. The tube of lipstick is still in her hand.

TT: And they're done downstairs. Now coming up the circular staircase.

Fuuuck.

TG: jade we need a bec evac stat!!   
GG: cant!!! hes still super exhausted and also im out here with the lady cop, if i tell him to go fetch you guys he might bring you guys back to me!!!    
GG: let me see if i can sneak off first

You glance up at the staircase you're hiding in the shadow of.

" _If we go up from here they'll just keep chasing us up_ ," Karkat whispers, so soft you barely hear him over the sea lapping at the hull. " _Once they're done with this floor they'll be right here_."

" _We need to get around but how--_ "

TT: Over the railing, now. In the axis of the ship.

You don't even pause to ask her how she knows, if anything was done about the wide open double doors and the dining room inside and the everything. The three of you are at the railing in the next second, and you're pretty sure Rose didn't mention the axis of the ship for shits and giggles so you go in a line at the precise point. Kanaya goes first, sidesweeping her way over the edge without hesitation; you wait as Karkat captchalogues his PDA, throwing nervous glances behind you. You can see lights spilling out of rooms as the cop and Mr. Crocker advance, soon they'll be able to see you through a window --

You see a shadow moving in a corridor inside and you elbow Karkat, who jumps awkwardly, and scramble after him. You hang from the railing one-handed for a second before dropping, hoping you gave him long enough to clear out from under you.

You didn't. Kanaya is in the process of pulling him aside when you land on him. The three of you make a sound of wild potato sacks being chased by elephants as you sprawl elegantly on the lower deck.

"--was that?"

You immediately roll and crawl for the shadow of the overhang. It makes noise. Shit, shit, shit.

Kanaya's eyes take on a steely glint, and as the both of you are still gaping in horror at the cop's lamplight tracing zigzags on the deck before you, she hauls the both of you by your collars and takes three running steps toward the, _oh, hell, no_.

Whirl. Splash.

" _I am breaking up with you_ ," you inform Kanaya as the three of you are paddling awkwardly against the hull. " _We are gosshipchumps no more_."

Kanaya gives a silent, nervous chuckle, and closes her eyes to listen, jaw tight with nerves.

Karkat's eyes are wide open, and he tries to be quiet as he dogpaddles but it doesn't take you long to realize how awkward he is in the water.

" _Shit, bud, do you know how to swim?_ "

He glares back, " _I know how not to drown. 's plenty!_ "

Crap. Uh. You think you remember how to swim while hauling someone else, but that was when you had two arms. Then again you don't need to go anywhere, you just need to hold him up. You slip behind him as well as you can and wrap your arm around his chest.

He kicks you, of course, trying to stay afloat.

" _Too much energy_ ," you whisper in his ear. " _You're wasting it. Slow down, I'll sink first, gives you a margin._ "

Somehow he manages. You look to Kanaya. Her eyes are still closed, her hand on the hull. Her hair is glued all over her face in licking tongues of ink-black messiness, it's funny to see her like that.

Footsteps ringing on a staircase nearby. Fucking hell.

You shove Karkat at Kanaya. You yank off your shirt, fling it over Kanaya's bright gold-and-ochre horns. (Karkat's are small enough to look like random shit floating in the water.) And then you dogpaddle your way to the nearest ladder.

"John?" you fake-whisper, loud enough to be heard. "John, c'mon, buddy."

You expected it and you still jump like a motherfucker when the cop and Mr. Crocker lean over the railing and torchlight catches you in the face.

"Hey!" you protest, lifting your hand to shield your face, even though the cop has immediately angled his light off to the side.

"Byrd?" Mr. Crocker inquires, like he can't believe it. Gotta remember that man is John's family through and through, wow. "Byrd, what are you _doing_ here -- ah, Byrd Strider, he's Dave's twin -- I need you to help me pull him up, please, he won't be able to."

The cop was scanning the water, but when Crocker calls him back he blinks down at you; you make sure he sees what's left of your right arm as you reach up for Crocker. You probably could have struggled your way up on your own, actually, but your hand being slippery-wet, your pants soaked heavy, and the hull curving over your head wouldn't have helped you.

The cop hooks you under the right armpit once Crocker has you high enough over the surface, and they pull you up the rest of the way, drag you back on deck. You flop down on your ass, only half faking it. Nerves have your legs all jangly. You're caught now, you're gonna have to _lie_ , and you're not super awesome at it. Bullshitting, yeah, but mostly because you always make a game out of how insincere you sound like.

"Byrd, what on _Earth_ \-- you could have drowned! Are you alright?"

You fake a sad little cough. "Yeah, I'm good. Uh. Sorry, Mister Crocker."

Your Ishades are still on your nose, though crooked. You nudge them back straight.

TG: psa   
TG: we were trying to be pirates   
TG: why is all the rum gone

You look up. Even if you know Crocker is on your side he does a very impressive Frustrated Parental Figure. The cop doesn't look much more accessible.

TG: ps i got caught bbl walking the plank

"What were you doing in the water, son?"

You push waterlogged bangs off your forehead, blink owlishly up over the rim of your shades. "I, uh. Swimming?"

The policeman offers a hand; you take it, allow him to pull you up. You don't bother hiding a little shiver when the breeze decides to check you out.

"In the port. Uh huh."

Crocker sighs heavily. "Let's... Let's just bring him back to his parents. I'm sure they'll appreciate an explanation too," he adds, heavy with parental menace. Brr.

You trudge back to the deck where everyone is gathered with your head low and shoulders hunched. Every step you take you want to yell _yes, yes, success_. The search is gloriously derailed now. And if they haven't found Terezi or Gamzee yet, they're not gonna.

When they see you dripping wet Bro pinches his lips together (he's trying not to laugh) and Momlonde stalks her way up to you. "Byrd! What happened to you?!"

You make sure to hang your head so you won't have to figure out what contrite is supposed to look like. "Slipped and fell."

"He was calling for John," Crocker says to Egbert, whose brows furrow impressively.

" _Really_. John?"

And as always the second John smells a trick to play he is _perfect_. "Uh -- aha. Nothing -- oh man, you should have waited for me, I, uh, we wanted to. Uh. Fish?"

Egbert doesn't answer, just frowns deeper. John bites his lip.

Jane and Rose do Disapproving Siblings pretty well, and Dirk is blank as an unpainted wall, but Roxy is about to burst into giggles. Bro crosses his arms, ominous. "Byrd. Explain why the police think we're running a teen smuggling ring. Now."

"Okay, okay, jegus! We sneaked out a little bit ago, found some guy with an ID to buy us a couple cases of beer, is all."

"Beer. You took all those risks for _beer_? I'm supposed to buy that shit?" His voice doesn't rise but it goes cutting; you flinch even knowing he doesn't mean it. "Where is it now? Where's your booze, Byrd?"

You hug yourself defensively. (You're getting a bit cold is all. Also, too many people staring. You don't know if you'd rather they were staring at your nipples or at your scars.) "It's in the water, alright?! We left it hanging on the hull and I wanted to pull it up and put it somewhere else and I slipped. Good luck diving for it."

"Aw, man!" John goes. "After all that money-- uh."

You turn on him to glare. "Well, maybe next time send someone with two fucking hands--"

"Byrd!" Mom snaps. You wilt. "I can't believe -- no, actually I can!" And then she turns on Bro. Wow. Clash of the Titans. "Good fucking Lord. Oh yes, he's your son alright! Have you ever seen Dirk or the girls pull a stunt like that?!"

Bro's eyes narrow and his voice drops. Wow, uh, looks like he's starting to take it seriously, even to you. Aw, man. "What, _my_ fault? He certainly didn't get the idea from _me_ , Romy."

 _"Daddy!_ " Rose stands straight, hands on her hips, and starts glaring at the both of them equally. "Can you perhaps not embarrass us in front of the police? If you _wouldn't mind_."

Everyone turns to stare at the cops, who now seem, behind a veneer of professional blandness, to be torn between laughing their asses off and groaning in embarrassment.

(Somehow you don't laugh at the brief flash of _what the fuck no_ that came and went on Bro's face at being called _Daddy_. Rose is evil. You fucking love her.)

Mr. Egbert walks up to Mom and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "There, honey, we talked about this. Shh." And now the tableau is complete; they're totally the old divorced couple going on vacation with the new boyfriend in a way too optimistic reconciliation attempt. The cops must be sure that by the time the ship gets to Hawaii only half of you will be left.

The mystery all figured out -- haha, if only they knew -- they apologize for the disturbance and excuse themselves. Mr. Crocker follows them to the gangway and padlocks it closed behind them.

Their taillights haven't even passed the gate when Terezi bursts out and stalks up to you. She's got her cane gripped in both hands before her, still sheathed but there's an inch of bare blade there in the middle. "Are you hurt?" she hisses, nostrils flaring. "I know you're not hurt but -- _hrsssst._ "

You've never heard her make that noise before. You've never heard any troll make that noise, not even Gamzee. It reminds you of outraged rattlesnakes and whistling blades and _I am going to kill something very dead, how dare even it be alive_. You don't even think to protest when she gets in your face to sniff you from up close.

"Uh -- Terezi? I'm fine, I--"

"Captured by legislacerators is not fine!" she corrects -- trying for pedantic but it's a bit too strident to hit that note -- and turns her back on you to stalk up to Dave next. Same routine of sniffing him, hissing quietly. Uh. Okay.

At least when he tentatively pets her shoulder she shudders and slumps over him.

Um. It looks like you... Uh. Worried her a little.

Um.

You look around you, at a loss, but John is blinking owlishly and Rose and Roxy offer no insight, watching her with the same arch to their eyebrows, only Rose only has only one eyebrow up and Roxy has both. (It's funny how sometimes they'll have the same mannerisms, when they're such different people.) Mrs. Lalonde is pulling out a cigarette, concentrating on it.

You can't really look at Bro. When he steps beside you, you wince even knowing he didn't mean the anger. You just... It was played too well. You hate making Bro that angry. That disappointed.

He stands with his elbow to your arm, and he says, "Byrd?"

You have no clue what's going to come out next. You make yourself lift your chin. Your eyes skid away. "Yeah?"

"One million years dungeon."

You crack the fuck up.

And then you swear. "Karkat and Kanaya!" You charge through the crowd and down the gallery, damp socks on polished wood a right hazard. Bro is right behind you, and Dirk and Roxy and John and one of the Crockbert twins. You see Jane duck inside a side door when you come to a stop and lean over the prow.

"Someone might see us from the quay," Rose points out as the rest of you bend over to scan for wayward trolls.

"We'll tell 'em we're trolling for lost beer," Bro answers dismissively, and then, "Ah, there you are. Alive?"

Jade arrives at a jog -- where was she? Taking her dog for a walk? Fat lot of good it did the lot of you to have her sneak away from the cops -- Bec trotting heavily behind her, and Jane with an armful of towels and fluffy bathrobes. You wave Jade in and move back to let her take your place at the guardrail, even though you don't really want to. The trolls' drowned-cat faces turned up to watch you all, gnh.

"Think Bec can get them out? They've been in long enough."

Jade purses her lips and then eyes her dog worriedly. Bec's ears are flopped backward in a way that looks pretty doubtful to you, or maybe pleading. You don't know much about dogs but it's not good either way.

"We'll manage!" Kanaya calls out from underneath. You lean back in to watch her paddle closer awkwardly. She's floating on her side, almost her back, holding Karkat to her chest; he kicks to attempt to help her, but his movements are even more uncoordinated than earlier.

When she grips the ladder, she can't pull Karkat up high enough for Bro and Mr. Egbert (or Crocker? Whatever) to catch him.

"He's getting cold," she says, worried, "his blood is too warm to stay in cool water this long--"

"I'm fine," Karkat grumps at her, and then tries to haul himself up. He flops back down on the water, briefly dunking Kanaya, who resurfaces sputtering and doesn't even glare.

"Someone get a rope," Bro says. Terezi decaptchalogues a noose. "That'll work."

Only he's just thrown it for them to catch when a handful of knives grabs you by the shoulder and hauls you back; a shadow with crazy hair shoulders the adults aside from a similar height, and jumps in.

The splash drenches Karkat and Kanaya, but they can't get much worse; Gamzee is on the ladder in the next second, a long arm hooked up far over his head and his feet planted firm on a rung just under the surface, hanging. There's a brief pause -- so that he and Kanaya can exchange predatory glares, no doubt -- and then, as Karkat is still spluttering, Kanaya hands him over.

Gamzee slips an arm around his waist and pulls him close and hauls himself back up, as if his moirail weighed nothing more than a wet kitten.

It's always profoundly disturbing when you get reminded of how much strength there is in that strung out body. Wow.

Gamzee stares at Bro with crazy killer eyes, even though Bro made no move to get closer, but when -- ah, it's got to be Egbert -- when Egbert steps closer and wraps his arms around them for a brief hug, he allows it.

"Oh Lord, my poor boys, are you alright? Jane, dear, please -- thank you."

Egbert wraps up Karkat first, for all that Gamzee will loosen his arm but not actually take it off him, and drapes a towel on Gamzee's head, between his horns, which makes him blink.

"Karkat, you're freezing, you need a hot bath straight away."

Gamzee nods like that was actually an order to him, but Karkat plants his heels. "No, hey -- Kanaya!"

They're hauling her out with the rope now; she takes a towel from Jane and rubs her face dry, scanning the crowd for Karkat -- a brief nod -- and then you.

Okay, why is she glaring.

Barely pausing to pat Rose's hand, she stalks up to you, chin high. Her shoes are missing, but bare feet aren't that much less intimidating.

"The _next_ time you give yourself to the legislacerators to cover for us--"

You almost dismiss it entirely, but there's a spark of real fear in there. Aw, man. You allow yourself to be reeled into a very damp, awkward, mildly brutal hug. "I was fine, Kanaya, they had no reason to do anything to me. It was way safer. Anyway I'm underage, it'd have to be pretty serious shit before their right to arrest me trumped Bro's right to maul them for touching me."

She releases you, leans back slightly, eyebrows relaxing. "Oh." You feel a little guilty for the exaggeration, considering she seems to take it as entirely factual -- oh, _trolls_ \-- but not much. So long as she feels better...!

You lean out of her hold, embarrassed, give Rose enough space to wrap Kanaya in a bigger towel. Everyone is listening, seems like. Blurgh. "Yeah, yeah. For silly stuff like breaking curfew, it's the parents' job to punish their kids as they see fit. Or not, some don't even bother. Bro yelled at me some and they considered the matter closed."

"Legis-fucking-rator?" Gamzee rumbles from behind Kanaya. He's still doing the heavy-lidded, psychopath stare, still pinging all your prey instincts. "What the shit were those unrighteous motherfuckers even came put their walk fronds on the Lifesister's property? Set to hunting my--"

Karkat's hand covers his face, or as much of his face it can cover. It's not really a tap, he just puts his hands there, palm on Gamzee's nose, fingers spread so he has to close his eyes. "Shh," he says, "I'm fine," and his voice wobbles a bit. "Just took a bath in oily, salty filth, is all."

Some of the crazy lifts. Gamzee doesn't let go. (Then again, Karkat doesn't lean out of his arms either.) "Shit, you're right, hatdad's right, you're an ice cube, brother, that shit's untold amounts of wrong." He starts chafing at Karkat's arms awkwardly.

You'd say something about how he should totes carry Karkat to the master bathroom and douse him in fancy bath salts like the princess he truly is -- you don't even know how much you'd be an asshole and how much you'd mean it, it might well make Karkat's day to be fussed at and he's been so... so limp without Gamzee, urgh.

Anyway, you can't, because when you open your mouth it's only to almost bite your tongue off when you sneeze.

And now it's Karkat who's frowning worriedly at you, of all people. He purses his lips and looks away when you arch your eyebrow at him, though, doesn't push it like Kanaya. Rose is fussing over her, though; you're almost sad there's no one fussing over you, but you don't see yourself asking Bro, or Jane...

Jade takes a towel and drapes it over your head, and then an arm lands around your shoulders from behind and suddenly you have four hands rubbing your hair dry in what is actually much closer to a noogie.

"Ow, ow, what the fuck, no, hey, stop, rape!"

"We're just helping, buddy!" John replies with sadistic glee.

Okay you've changed your mind, someone stop them fussing please. Fussing is the devil.

"Oh, that's a great idea!" Jade says in answer to something you didn't catch, and lays off you a little.

You bat John's hands off and emerge from the towel, swearing under your breath. "What's a great idea? I'm vetoing it. Totally vetoing it."

"Gamzee wants to get Karkat in the Jacuzzi on the highest deck!" she replies. "I haven't seen it yet but it's surely big enough for several people."

Gamzee's brow furrow. "Hey, now, woofsis--"

"No, it's a great idea," Karkat interrupts, avoiding his eyes. "Kanaya too. Seems relaxing as shit, and if I don't relax soon I'm gonna bite someone's sniffnode right off their pointy face, Terezi what the fuck."

Terezi is indeed in Karkat's face, grimacing and not licking at all. "I concur, this is an emergency. All of you need cleaned and then warmed up post-haste." She sends a pointed somewhat-like-a-glare nod Gamzee's way, like she's judging him on not doing that yet; he growls, but then he looks away, probably because he thinks she's right.

The adults seem to think it's an awesome idea, at any rate, so about a minute later you are being herded upstairs by Jade and John, trudging after Kanaya and Rose and Gamzee and Karkat. Kanaya keeps turning back to throw you little fretty looks over her shoulder.

You stop a floor before the top to take advantage of the shower. Oh, the warmth, the relaxation, the _privacy_. You almost don't come out again. But then Dirk comes in with brand new bathing shorts from your luggage, which is two floors down, and you allow yourself to be bullied into them. (Not physically. Only verbally. Not even your blood-related bro gets to see your cold-shrunk junk thankyouverymuch.)

When you put your shades back on there's a Pesterchum window open.

CG: BYRD? ARE YOU COMING? 

You arch an eyebrow, even as you slip your arms in a ridiculously soft and fluffy bathrobe. There's a Betty Crocker logo on it, which is not disturbing at all to anyone.

TG: feeling lonely with only your pet cuddlespider are you   
TG: admit it you need to be covered in bitches while you lounge around in that sinful bubbletub   
TG: well will you look at that classiest most expensive callgirl in existence coming up to sprawl luxuriously across your bubble obscured lap   
TG: what naughty shenanigans could happen under there i wonder

You pause.

TG: terezi if youre reading over his shoulder gtfo or im drowning you in the bay   
CG: SHE'S NOT HERE YET.

Phew.

CG: YOU CAN NOT BE HORNY *NOW*. I REFUSE IT.    
TG: hey you might have spent a refreshing while in cold water but *i* got to save the day and just guess where adrenaline travels to when a big damn hero like me doesnt get to use it in the delivery of epic beatdowns   
TG: hint its somewhere southwards   
CG: JUST... SHUT UP AND COME UP.    
TG: that can be arranged   
TG: insert eyebrow waggling here   
CG: HOW IS THAT EVEN AN INNUENDO?!    
TG: oh my sweet virginal padawan the *things* you shall learn at my hands   
TG: and other body parts   
CG: TEREZI IS NOT HERE.    
CG: GAMZEE *IS.*    
CG: AND DON'T EVEN PRETEND YOUR JUNK IS NOT JUST AS MUCH OF AN UNCHARTED TERRITORY AS MINE, ASSMUNCH.

Meep.

TG: lies my hand knows the terrain with laser precision rainforest and all   
TG: uh btw you do know we mammals get furry in   
TG: uh   
TG: no you know what im not gonna tell you about my pubes with john beating on the other side of the door see you in a minute   
CG: FIN-FUCKING-ALLY.

He didn't seem very interested in banter anyway. You open the door; two seconds later John and Jade are towing you again.

"Are you assholes wearing _swimsuits_. Whatever gave you the idea this party was open to lazy unhelpful gawkers. Seriously."

"That thing seats at least eight people," John replies with an amused eyeroll, and then you're all on top of the staircase.

There's no real roof this high up, only an awning over the Jacuzzi and a spread of wooden deck to sun yourself on, if it were daytime. You see Karkat's back first, draped over the edge of the pool and his legs dangling in; he's damp and so are his shorts, nicely clingy. The little lights all around only give a warm golden glow that you couldn't read by without getting a migraine, but the screen of John's PDA throws harsher whites on his shoulder.

Gamzee is sitting in the bubbling water beside him, turned to look up at him like a dog not sure what it did wrong but hoping it'll get forgiven soon.

They're sitting pretty close, though. You don't think they've talked, and Karkat is trying to avoid a conversation, but he's not avoiding the dude entirely. Might be hard, after a scene like that, you suppose.

You dump your bathrobe and drop in the water without warning. Wow, hot.

"Fuck! What the hell, I'm holding fragile human electronics -- huh. You're here. Finally."

Jade snickers at him and sinks in beside you, long legs first. Man, you miss having the right to get your hands all over them.

You weren't even exaggerating much to Karkat when you told him your adrenaline had migrated south. Doesn't look like you're gonna get to nibble on the wet curve of his shoulder, with the World's Creepiest Chaperone just on his other side, and with John right here to boot. So if you want to sneakily ogle Jade's legs or the nice heart-shaped neckline of her swimsuit, eh. Won't hurt no one.

Gamzee gives you a jaundiced look; his eyes glide over Jade without much interest. When John splashes in at his side, though, you get to see creepyclown make a smile that's almost sincere and only mildly scary. John is unfazed. "Hey, lil' bro."

"Aw, c'mon, Gamzee, we agreed I was the eldest, I gave you a sparkly thing even!"

"There, there. Was just referring to your size, I was," Gamzee replies, and props an elbow on John's head. His smile crooks weird, but weird as in socially awkward, not weird as in I'm only mimicking human so you won't scream until too late.

You stretch your legs in the deliciously hot, bubbly water, and observe the weirdest interaction you've witnessed since Bro and Gamzee had that Lil' Cal themed rap battle.

Both times it involved Makara. Coincidence? You think not.

Terezi and Dave show up. "Party!" yells Terezi, and they shove their way in, splashing everyone liberally. Copycats.

Now there's seven of you in the Jacuzzi, and it might seat eight but only if they're pretty close friends. Orgyly close friends. Okay, no, maybe you have a Strider's impressive personal space, but still. You end up shoved along the long side toward the U-bend where Gamzee and Karkat are, Jade at your side. She and John amuse themselves pushing against each other's feet and trying to pull each other off the bench keeping your heads above water.

"That's my foot, fart breath!"

Jade laughs, teeth bared white. "Fart breath yourself, poopy pants!"

Okay, Karkat has officially joined in. You are made collateral damage from three sides now. Ow. "Hey, cool it with the footsie there, I only have two feet to reciprocate the tender attention with."

You trap a foot that you're pretty sure is Karkat's. It turns out to be John's, if you believe the burst of giggles when you tickle the mystery foot's arch with your big toe. Um, okay, no. Hell fucking no. You pretend you totally meant it to cover your hasty retreat.

Kanaya and Rose arrive, and you wave them close near desperately. "Jade, budge over, I want my gossipchump, we need to have a serious feelings jam about that rumor mongering campaign we're totally not planning. I'm not trying to break up the water football game, by the way, nope."

Jade rolls her eyes, and instead of squeezing herself against Terezi's side (oh lord a Terezi/Jade sandwich no bad hormones bad stop) like you'd expected she rolls over into the well in the middle and sort of paddles, sort of lazily kicks herself afloat. Kanaya slides in beside you.

She has nice legs too, but she's also Ellen DeGeneres levels of lesbian and also the thought of crossing Rose would stop any young man cold, so it's actually a relief to have her shielding you on her side.

Also she's taller than you. Mnrr.

"Move over a little more, Byrd," Rose asks, and then you're shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee with Karkat and wow the sky is fascinating tonight yep totally.

Terezi is smirking in your direction from the other end of the Jacuzzi. You glare at her behind your shades. You're sure she can tell.

Okay. Yeah. Girls are real nice to look at. But so are some guys, sometimes. You're just thankful Gamzee and John are too gangly and boney to ping you much.

Also what a difference it makes knowing you're allowed to touch this one.

Knowing what sounds he makes when you've got a handful of his nice little ass and he's pressing his crotch against yours. Knowing he _bites_.

"--Byrd?"

"Uh -- what?" Okay, they're all chuckling at you, no fuck them.

Roxy -- when did she _get_ there? -- repeats patiently, "You want a soda?" You take one at random from the tray she's holding on one arm, mildly flustered.

Looks like you're going to get your chat-until-three-AM thing after all. Dirk and Jane are here too, dragging in deck chairs to sit near the water.

Roxy sits on the edge, her legs hanging in between John and Dave; no one is surprised when John drags her in by the ankle, soaking her shorts and t-shirt. A splashing battle ensues, quickly spreading to Terezi and Jade. People get dunked, people get splashed up the nostrils, etcetera.

You and Gamzee turn your shoulders to the mess and your faces toward Karkat at the same time, and you both pause there for a second in the middle of flying drops and splashes, before some gets past your shades and you dodge behind Karkat's raised elbow.

Gamzee is sort of shielding both his own face and Karkat's. Karkat looks torn, stealing little glances up at his palebro and his gross beading makeup. Little glances at you, too, and those make your blood speed up some as you look back at him through water-beaded eyelashes.

Your knee is halfway up on his thigh.

Gamzee is halfway hugging him. Between the two of you, you're probably giving his alien dick whiplash.

And then of course Rose decides to show everyone how water fights are done. Karkat and you splutter out used water, blink furiously. Gamzee has of course avoided the worst, that asshole.

Karkat's eyes glint, gone narrow, and he glances at Gamzee, and at you. "No, okay, you know what? Fuck that noise. _Let's get them_."

You do.

It's epic.

Afterwards, as you all cuddle languidly in a pile of squashed dudes and chicks, you're all damned glad the pool refills on its own, even though with twelve people inside it -- Dirk shouldn't have leaned over the edge like that, dude was asking for it, and Jane didn't even bother running when Roxy and John came for her so it's almost like she wanted it, right -- you're also glad it knows when to stop topping it off. You've all wasted enough water as it is.

There's bone-melting warmth and ticklish, shiver-inducing bubbles everywhere, and you have Kanaya laughing in your ear about Terezi macking on Dave did you see the little smug looks Dave keeps throwing at Gamzee _oh lord caliginous three way??_ , and you have Karkat's waist in your arm all narrow and strong and he's willing to lean in and let you explore his hipbone, back and forth and back and forth on a bare handful of square inches. Jade is perched on your knee, and John is shoving at your Kanaya-free shoulder and laughing, laughing.

Karkat would deny it to his death, but he's totally purring. "Doesn't it make you wish Sollux and Aradia and that annoying John-clone were here?"

"Sure doesn't, bro. Where would we up and put the water?"

Some days you really fucking love your life.

(You have a boner that won't quit.)


	11. Chapter 11

You wake up, roll over, and there is some more bed to roll onto, nary a hard floor rising to smack your face after a tiny half-wriggle. A long, gorgeous stretch of (vaguely starchy) cool, empty sheets stretch under your hand, your heels.

You make a starfish. Just because you can.

You are a very smug starfish. You don't even care you're a lopsided one.

Also your brain is half-awake and stupid from going to bed at three AM but fuck that. You spend another ten minutes staring at the ceiling, a dopey and uncool smile spreading on your face without your permission and _who cares, nobody will see_.

Your stomach is starting to whimper about being empty, though, and your bladder is throwing a bitchfit about being too full. With a sigh, you get up, wobble to the cramped sink-shower-toilet Rubik's Cube closet that pretends to be a bathroom. Can't turn around without smacking your elbow on shit; feels just like home.

And here Dadbert tried to talk you into rooming in the "boy's dormitory" because there was a blinged-up bathtub there. Yeah, you totally want to pay for a tub with a room shared with John, Dave, Karkat and Gamzee for the next three weeks, especially one where you'd have to fight over who gets not to sleep on a cot. What a golden chance it is you allowed to slip between your fingers, wow, you'll never get over it.

Your room is a tiny thing stuck in the crew quarter; there's barely enough space to shuffle around the double bed, the roof is low and the walls sloppily painted, and you get linoleum instead of carpet. A couple of particleboard closets add their Ikea chic touch to the décor. You fucking love it.

You especially love the genuine porthole with bona fide seawater splashed all over it. Really brings it all together.

Huh, the ship's moving.

You're not feeling it much here -- so low to the water, in the middle of the ship -- but the regular spray splattering on your porthole doesn't lie; this ship can't be tamed. Damn, you kind of wanted to watch the land recede, nothing but water is bound to get boring after the first two weeks of limitless horizons.

You don't even know if that one is irony or not.

A quick shower, and then you throw baggy shorts and a shirt on, put on your iShades, slip your feet in the most garish flip-flops you own. They're pastel pink and acid green with touches of your orange, you feel like it today. Hell, even the shirt is orange, though the shade is off, closer to Bro's tangerine text than yours. Fuck the universe, your mood is great today and you're gonna rock the orangeness.

Okay, there's a shit-ton of narrow stairs to climb up on the way to food, and it's vaguely awkward to keep your balance, but you're only halfway up the second flight when the smell of ocean and toast wanders down, and after that somehow it goes faster.

One of the Crockbert parental units peeks out of the kitchen when you emerge from the service stairs, smiles. "Ah, Byrd. Finally awake?"

"Looks like." You _so_ don't want to be rude to someone wearing an apron when there's such breakfasty smells in the air, so you shove down as much of the snark as you can. "What time is it?"

"Almost eleven. I take it you slept well? Lucky boy."

You don't even enjoy the avuncular hilarity of being called 'lucky boy' because he just took a chocolate croissant thing out of the oven and put it on a plate and handed it to you. You don't even know which twin he is but you promise yourself from now on he'll be your favorite.

"Give it a minute to cool down," he advises, and pulls a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge. "Or do you want orange juice?"

Eurgh, orange. "Apple's cool," you hurry to say. Dude then proceeds to pour you a glass, and then goes out through the other door to place it on the big dinner table. There are crumbs all over the place so likely everyone else already breakfasted on it.

"Please sit down," he says, and before you can object, he gives you a little eye-wrinkling smile. "You Strider men sadden me with your regrettable habit of eating standing at the counter."

Either this is Dadbert, or Crockpop witnessed something unfortunate this morning with your three bros.

Croissant, apple juice... yeah, the deducing can wait. You say thanks like a totally well-raised kid who doesn't want to see the source of manna dry up, and sit.

He was right, you burn your mouth on the first chomp. Totally worth it.

"Fried eggs? Bacon?"

"Holy shit, marry me."

Um. Your face heats up a little, and you expect to be corrected on language but the man just gives a single rough chuckle.

"Flattered as I am, your brother might object."

True; if you steal the dude your Bro is making eyes at he might turn your little room into a smuppet storage closet in the night. You shudder.

Oh wait, he probably meant it in the sense that he's old enough to be your dad and a responsible guardian would totally object. Wow are you lucky you were busy drinking and didn't actually answer that.

(You think if you scored with some old dude or lady the only thing Bro would care about would be whether they're a good lay. Okay, yeah, not true, the first thing he'd care about would be whether you were the one who came on to them first and no disgusting grooming or pressuring happened. But the second thing he'd ask would totally be if they were worth the ride. How To Turn You Off Cougars Forever In One Conversation, Bro Strider Edition.)

Okay, time for a subtle and elegant change of topic. "Where's everyone else?"

"Hm? Phil is teaching Jade the finer points of handling a ship this size, two of your brothers are down in the machine room, and I'm not entirely sure where the rest are. Possibly busy with their computers."

Oh hey this is the Egbert one after all. You have your mouth full and ain't no way you're not gonna keep it full for at long as this croissant thing lasts, so you go with making a mph? noise.

"Right, you weren't there for the announcement. Once we're out of territorial waters, the roaming charges for the wifi will be rather on the side of astronomical, so we'll be cutting access down to emergency contact and two hours in the evening."

You cough, swallow wrong, hit your chest with a closed fist. "Wha?"

"The evening access will be limited to four people maximum at one time. I'm sure you young people will get used to the lack of internet access so fast, in a week you won't even want to take your turn when it -- Byrd?"

" _Sorry here's the plate I'll wash it later got shit to download bye!_ "

There is no way in hell you are going to get stuck on a boat for a month without a shit-ton of computer games and all the movies you can torrent before this evening.

\--

Ten minutes later when you emerge with your laptop (like being on deck will give you better access to the ship's 3G setup or something) you realize the reason Egbert brought it up at that point in the conversation was that _all the other human players are using it to download their own shit_.

No wonder your download rate is atrocious. Thank fuck for bittorrent.

You step over John sprawled on the floor, half in the shade, plop your butt on a padded deck chair between Rose's feet, and start hunting around the illegalest of all torrenting sites.

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] wants to send the file Movies.txt --

TT: List of movies already being downloaded. Don't double up on shit. Add your own and pass it on.   
TG: huh k you know what thats not a bad idea   
TT: 'Course not, it's mine.   
TG: pff   
TG: you bragging braggart   
TG: dont think anyone will want to list their free amateur schoolgirl dominatrix clips for perusal tho i mean dude can you see walking up to half these peeps and asking to trade some ebon vixens for whip wielding dickgirls   
TG: but anyone think of dedicating a machine to our own porn hub yet   
TG: i bet you didnt think of that huh   
TT: Roxy did, as a matter of fact.   
TT: Alas, Jane vetoed her.   
TT: The netbook with the pink cat on it suffered a tragic hardware failure and you might find it abandoned in a lot of strange places. The password yeypr0nz will naturally be totally useless.   
TG: naturally   
TT: (Zero, not uppercase o.)   
TG: how could it ever be otherwise man what else do you do with a fried machine like that apart from plugging in and trying to see if up/downloading nice big splurts of data helps at all   
TG: btw roxy is now my favorite   
TT: My heart is in splinters.   
TG: hey hey bro psst look up

When he does you purse your lips at him in your best schoolteacherly Not Funny, Young Man face.

You don't even know if you'll make use of the porn hub (you talk a good game but wow yeah Roxy has you beat in Actually Shameless) because thinking about it, any clip on it having a chance of belonging to one of your siblings' prized knob-waxing collection... Maybe a _bit_ too incesty.

About that.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: hey rose i need you to swear none of the bdsm corset porn will be yours   
TG: bald faced perjury preferred   
TT: Of course, dear brother, as I would never collect anything like that in the first place.   
TT: The needleplay and sounding videos will of course not be mine either, so that you can feel free to peruse them in incest-free safety.   
TG: yay ill totes jump on the sounding stuff like a vegetarian on the single plate of falafel at a meatlover barbeque   
TG: here comes the non rose contaminated safety oh lord thank you for this feast of dongs behaving against nature   
TG: how wrong was i thinking dicks go in things things dont go in dicks   
TG: how wrong my friend   
TT: A tragic, yet understandable mistake. I am glad to have contributed, however indirectly and non-incestuously, to your enlightenment. 

After that your next impulse is to ask what she _will_ contribute to the porn hub then. Which uh. Yeah. No.

TG: whos in the know about the naughty kitty btw i mean apart from jane obvs   
TT: So far, all of us Striders and Lalondes, connoisseurs of fine pornography as we are.   
TT: I mean of course the younger generation. It goes without saying that Bro and my mother are Sir and Madam Not Invited to this virtual wife-swapping extravaganza.   
TG: I am making this face irl :X   
TT: No you aren't, you vile little liar.   
TG: you didnt have to kick me   
TT: Au contraire, my dear. Au contraire.   
TG: ill sick my gossipchump on you   
TT: Are you sure you wish to attempt this? Because I feel fairly confident in predicting she will side with the one who has *already* put out. 

Gnnnh. Poker face, poker face.

TG: damn need to set up a major nailpolish and bitching session pronto then   
TT: What a grand idea. I'll tell Kanaya she can dig out her secondary wardrobe.   
TG: im sure ill look darling   
TT: She would allow nothing less.   
TT: But anyway. Regarding the pink netbook and the matter of its knowledge. I planned on telling Jade, of course...   
TG: of course shed gut us otherwise   
TG: looks so sweet and innocent but shes innocent like a wild beast and lemme tell you those are a randy lot

Goddamn it why did you say that, Jade's libido is not your problem anymore.

... It doesn't even sting much, though. Yeah, okay, you could have had firsthand knowledge of that, instead of whispered confessions and hints and speaking glances that went nowhere, if you were less of a whiny loser. You were a total whiny loser, that ship sailed and was then promptly torpedoed in the bay, the end.

Possibly it helps you've touched other butts since then. (Well, one other butt, but boy did you touch it.) Yeah. Must be it. You vaguely wonder where Karkat is.

TT: And out of all the trolls I cannot conceive of one of them betraying us to the authorities, such as they are, but I am not yet sure how very interested most of them will be.   
TT: Alright, no, Kanaya is at least nominally interested in human anatomy. So is Terezi, now that I think of it.   
TG: yeah sounds like that is a thing they are and thanks for rubbing it in   
TG: wonder if they have any troll porn to share   
TG: wow ok i think i just gazed into the abyss and the abyss winked back saucily

She chuckles quietly, not looking up from her screen.

TT: For that matter, the only troll who has expressed total disinterest in humans is Gamzee, and as it happens he is also the one most likely to betray this little secret out of sheer carelessness. 

You're not sure Gamzee is ever entirely careless when he fucks people over. At least you can't help but feel it's a mildly malicious sort of carelessness. Like hell if he's going to lose you your porn hub.

TG: yeah ok makara vetoed its a majority motion passed   
TT: I suppose it falls on you to induct Karkat in, then. 

She can't know. _She can't know._

It's Rose. You're sure she does. You're sure she read your mind right then when you were thinking butt-touching thoughts. Somehow. Auuugh. Did Jade spill? Terezi? Hell, maybe Kanaya. Argh! Too many broads in the know, and you haven't even gotten to bust a nut with the guy.

TG: uh   
TG: why me exactly   
TG: the guy is guaranteed to explode in splutters and flail and thats not gonna attract tons of parental attention nope

Is his machine even compatible?

... Okay, brain, what the fuck, you just slammed yourself with two self-comebacks, wow.

_Well then he'll have to watch his porn on mine. W00t._

_Well then we'll need to test that ... compatibility thing seriously, then. Wink wink nudge nudge._

Ffff. They're not even _good_ comebacks.

TT: Byrd?   
TG: omygod i just found the lion king in chinese that shit is bananas   
TG: shhh cant talk hunting working seeders

That was subtle. Wow.

You stubbornly keep your eyes on your laptop. You can feel her smiling anyway.

\--

Lunch time happens at something like two thirty, to the great despair of the Fedora Twins. It was hard to corral everyone, and they wanted it to be a group occasion. You wedge your way between Jade and Jane at the table and scandalize poor Jane by grabbing the fork in your teeth so your gorgeous, gorgeous steak won't escape as you saw it into edible chunks. Good knife, best friend. It's been so goddamn long since you had real meat (hamburger doesn't count), you're not letting a little awkward staring stop you now.

(You think she wants to offer to cut your meat for you, but she doesn't know if that'd be offensive or what. Frankly, you're not even sure. Right now you wouldn't get offended, only if someone takes meat from your plate for any reason they better be prepared to lose their fingers in exchange.)

It's a noisy mess and everyone talks over everyone else; people laugh from every corner, often for no reason. It's vaguely overwhelming, this chaos, but you really like it too. This is your family. The only missing members are Aradia and Sollux and Jake, stuck waiting like chumps on Hellmurder Island, but you don't even know them all that well so you don't personally miss them much.

(Aradia sounds pretty hilarious, though.)

Dave and Bro are liberally streaked with engine grease and Bro at least looks happy as a pig in shit about it, from the way he teases Crocker when Crocker comments about the fingerprints he leaves on the tablecloth. Dirk, you're not sure, you wonder why he didn't go down to help Bro since engines and stuff are way more his thing than Dave's. It's not like he can't deal with a couple hours in close quarters with older him after all, right? Hm.

Roxy and Terezi are having a very involved conversation about something mysterious. Bonding is happening under your very eyes. This is mildly terrifying. Everyone else seems happy enough.

Ding ding ding. "Your attention please." Ahh, Dadbert is -- no, wait, that's the Crocker one, Dadbert is sitting by Gamzee. (They're smiling at each other? Gamzee looks almost nice? What is this fuckery.)

Anyway you're not sure if Jane's dad planned to sound so much like a professional announcer but he does the tone so smoothly John laughs anyway. The man flicks him a tiny smile.

"As you all may have figured out, the fact that we had to do away with a crew in order to hide some of our members means--"

"Aw, no!" John protests. "Boo to chores!"

Wow, chores. What are those. You usually wash your own sh -- well, when you were still both a single Dave you washed your own shit because you didn't want it tangled up with Bro's thongs and even more unmentionable unmentionables, you ate out of cartons, and dusting and stuff happened mostly when it got too annoying. You never had a set daily task. This is a novelty.

Possibly not one you'll enjoy, but you think you can deal.

So _suburban_ though. Heh.

"Yes, chores." Crocker purses his mouth forbiddingly. "I am deeply sorry, young man, there _will_ be chores."

"Aww."

"This ship is usually operated by a professional crew comprised of seven people. As none of us are professionals, I think we can afford to put more people onto a single task. For now, Jade and I will be sharing the wheel. It shouldn't take too long to finish training her to pilot bigger ships than she is used to. Should anyone else want to learn--"

Terezi's hand flies into the air.

"Dude," Dave says, "you're blind. I know most of the time it's like magical blind not real world blind, but ain't like you're gonna be able to lick the horizon."

She makes a face. "Well obviously I should only pilot on deeper waters at first! I still think it would be extremely interesting."

The adults exchange a look. Lalonde shrugs. "Don't see why not! She can read a screen, she can read instruments. Plus most of the piloting is really sitting in the cockpit and glancing at stuff regularly to make sure we stay on course."

"Alright, then. You can come up with Jade this afternoon."

Terezi sits back down, grinning like a hyena, and spears her steak with great prejudice.

"We also need engineers to make sure the motors -- yes, Strider, you may be chief engineer."

"Sweet," Bro says, entirely seriously.

"Fuck him," Mrs. Lalonde retorts. "That's discrimination. I'm just as qualified as you are, buddy."

"You can be chief when I'm not chief. Rox, Dirk?"

Roxy is quick to agree; Dirk, less so, but eventually he agrees that it's a logical repartition of the task. Jade demands to be taken on as auxiliary engineer. You're not sure when she's gonna sleep.

"Kitchen crew, headed by Paul, if you don't mind?"

"Naturally not."

"I will of course join you as time permits."

It's kinda creepy to see them exchanging urbane little robo-sentences, with their identical faces and clothes; even sitting down Paul Egbert manages to have the same posture as Phil Crocker, the same set to his shoulders. You wonder if you and Dave are that creepy. Surely that's not possible.

"Jane, John, you're requisitioned." (John groans and flops across the table, predictably. You peg him in the head with a bit of bread.) "Gamzee, do you feel up to participating?"

"Sure thing, man. I'll be all manners of happy to get my food-helping on."

"Lord make it so he's never without supervision," you hear Karkat mutter. (So do three fourths of the table; he doesn't mutter very quietly.)

"If anyone knows how to handle simple foods they are welcome to assist. And the rest of you will have to be the cleaning and dishwashing crew. We will count up work hours later in the week and possibly redistribute some tasks, but for the moment this is how it will go. Here is a chart, write your name next to your chores and later each of you can tick off your completed tasks..."

... Wow, organized. You're torn between admiration and a need to groan and hide somewhere. Dude has a chart. Dude has _several_ charts.

You just... You sign yourself up for laundry, blindly; in between dishwashing, table setting and deck swabbing, you figure collecting bags of dirty clothes and shoving them in machines is pretty much the one thing you can do well and not too slowly one-handed. Someone else will have to handle the folding.

Karkat and Roxy have volunteered to clean the table; you redeem your whole day so far when he hip-checks your shoulder bending over to reach your glass and you accidentally-on-purpose trail your fingers against a bare gray knee under the table.

He doesn't drop anything. For a second his eyes narrow faintly, though, like he's trying to tell you he'd have shoved your face in the broken piece if you'd made him do that.

"Why's your shit all over the place, asshole."

Oh hey a slice of waist under that gaping shirt. When you lean forward you briefly manage to brush your fingertips against his stomach, hidden by the hang of his shirt and your own body. His muscles twitch. "Eh, I dunno, it was afraid of my swag maybe. Scattered in terror."

"Can't be afraid of something that doesn't exist."

He hip-checks you again on the way out. You figure you're forgiven.

\--

"We are a bunch of nerds."

The observation is totally warranted. You warrant it, for one.

There's the Jacuzzi, right? And the towels, and the deck chairs, and the little tables with fizzy drinks on them with paper umbrellas, and the bunch of dickwads in bathing apparel.

There's also a shadowed corner littered with like seven laptops and three PDAs. So the assholes reading or sunbathing or flailing around in the tub can check on their downloads and rebalance the load if needed at the drop of a hat.

You are a bunch of total, entire, consummate nerds.

(Karkat, stretched out on a deck chair with long bare legs emerging from underneath his crabtop, is a rather nice-looking one. Why is he wearing a shirt, though, he's in the shade. Goddamn but you want some eyecandy for your money, okay.)

You go to make a space for your laptop amongst its technological brethren. (Dirk is sitting there, back against the wall, monitoring them. Pff.) While you're at it you unplug one of the other laptops with a full battery charge and plug yours in. You figure everyone can trade off. That or your own baby will be savagely unplugged when the owner finds out the crime you have committed, but by then it should have more battery.

John is sprawled in the sun already, looking half-asleep, and Kanaya and Rose are sitting together in the tub, but you don't want to risk Rose's wrath by relocating her book and kidnapping her deck chair. Hmm.

The air is almost dry up here, it smells like salt and polished wood. You've never sunbathed before, but you figure it can't hurt to try it once. Dunno if you want to do it before or after you take a dip in the tub, though. Hope the water isn't set to hot.

"Hep hep hep, where are you going."

Oh no, what does Bro want now. You turn around warily. For a second you hope he's talking to Dave, who was following him up the stairs and veered toward the tub, but then he turns to look at you, and you groan a bit inside.

"Sunlight equals UV cream, bud."

"But that's for douches!"

"Unburned douches," Mrs. Lalonde counters. "Both of you, heel. Rose?"

"I had Kanaya help me, Mom," the traitor replies languidly from the pool.

Bro unscrews the top of his bottle, looking blank-facedly evil. You and Dave exchange a quick, alarmed look, and then you throw him mercilessly to the crocodiles. "Hey Mom, mind doing me."

"Sure thing, Birdie."

 _Birdie_? You purse your lips at her meaningfully, but it's still her or Bro. Stashing your pride, you obligingly turn and allow her to slather your back in cold cream.

She attacks your ribs, rubbing the cream in briskly. Gnnh, it tickles. You try not to react. You try _very hard_ not to react.

"How grown up you're getting!" she exclaims, pinching your sides. You think maybe you should have let Bro have a go at it after all. "Bro, don't you think our children are becoming beautiful butterflies after all."

"I will never regret laying metaphorical eggs with you one day of my life," he replies. Dave yips; you wish you could see what Bro just did to him. "Okay, do your own face. Yes, even under the shades. The suntanned-in shades look ain't ironic, it's just stupid."

"Aw, Bro, asking me to take off the shades in public, how shameless. I -- I can't."

"There, there, sugarplum, gimme your towel and I'll make a tent to hide your sinful good looks. None shall be led into temptation by those nubile eyes."

"You know," Karkat muses over the screen of his crabtop, "I used to wonder why Dave's such a weirdo. And then I met you."

He's a little tense, you note, when he's saying that; his usual loudly caustic tone of voice is so restrained it comes out almost mild, and he's watching Bro from the corner of his eye.

Bro just nods. "The world was not ready for us."

Karkat's legs relax, his toes uncurl. "Spoiler: it's never going to be."

Wow, did Bro just _smile_. Okay, it was barely there at all, but it was totally a smile, not a smirk or a weird shadow or anything. "That's okay. Uniqueness is better. Gotta keep the market value up. You guys get skin cancer, by the way?"

Karkat blinks, thrown. "Uh?"

"Trolls. Skin cancer? From sun rays?"

"Uh. From the _sun_?" Karkat splutters, and then cringes a little. "Er... I don't know. Kanaya?"

"Sadly, I have no idea," Kanaya says, turning in her seat to look at everyone straight on. "Back home most trolls were more concerned with the possibility of live charbroiling. As a Jadeblood I've always been immune, but I don't know what would happen to any other color."

Romy arches an eyebrow. "Wait. Charbroiling?"

"Um -- yes? Alternia's sun was -- well, I believe it was more a matter of the planet's ozone layer, for most people it was a very bad idea to be out by day. The moons provided plenty of light though."

"Trolls are habitually nocturnal," Rose adds. "It doesn't seem to be an issue with human-required levels of sunlight, simply that theirs was too potent."

Romy makes a little displeased noise, eyebrows scrunching up. "Okay, that's officially a risk we are not taking. Line up for sunscreen!"

Karkat looks _horrified_. Argh. Why is everything drama with this guy... You guess you can help deflect though. Brownie points, here you come. (Hur hur hur.) "What about allergies?" you point out.

Mrs. Lalonde shrugs and goes to Karkat, makes him hold out his hand, wrist up, puts a dollop of product on it. "If in ten minutes there's no reaction then it should be safe. Ish. Kanaya, dear, your hand please."

You did what you could. You get Mrs. Lalonde to put a generous dollop on your fingers and finish greasing up your face and legs while they wait. Meanwhile Terezi and Jade appear, chattering about the control tower or what the fuck ever what, Roxy on their heels.

"Sunscreen!" Mrs. Lalonde proclaims, and lobs the bottle at Jade.

"Oh, no, I'm super tan, it's fine, thank you."

"Nuh huh, super tan people get skin cancer too. Maybe you need one a bit less powerful, but seriously, put it on anyway."

"Aw. Fine, fine." Jade goes to plug her laptop and computer-shoes with the rest. You try not to worry that the computers will sprawl out of the zone of shadows if it keeps up.

"Whatcha doin?" you ask Karkat, going to crouch by his side to peer at his screen. He glares a little and lifts a hand to cover the screen half-heartedly, but gives up hiding it in a second.

"Ever heard of privacy? And I'm messaging Sollux, what else am I supposed to do?"

"Dunno. Look for kitten videos?"

The look he levels on you is about 75% disbelief, 25% offense. "Yes, I am totally wasting my afternoon trying to decipher the zoophiliac attraction most of your species shows for pale porn starring meowbeast grubs. Don't tell me you never noticed our computers don't go on your human internet. The most we can do with them is use Trollian." He pats the keyboard, almost the way Jade pats Bec's side -- really rough-looking but somewhat affectionate too. "This is effectively a very heavy messenger featherbeast."

You blink. "... Seriously? Wow, shit. No, wait, you said something about needing to use John's computer for naughty stuff before, right."

He flinches, whispers in a hiss. "The point was that I _didn't_ use John's computer! -- And not that I would have wanted to either way! And anyway we can still use whatever's still on our machines, we just don't -- there's no more troll internet to connect to. Is all."

Huh. "Fucking Game fuckery."

"Wow, that was eloquent, I am moved to tears by your word mastery."

You give a slow blink he can't see anyway and deadpan, "Fuck the fuck out of you. Fuckingly."

His lips twitch. It's totally because you were funny and not at all because he's thinking macking thoughts like perhaps how to make you stop spouting inanities with his mouth. Which honestly you would totally be in favor of.

You spend a little while looking at his conversation with Sollux, but it's nothing super interesting or private. Mostly they're trying to make each other jealous of the sweet crib they have at the moment. Unsurprisingly Sollux appears to be winning; eyecandy doesn't trump personal space and peace and quiet.

You totally waggle your eyebrows at Sollux's eyecandy crack. Karkat elbows you in the temple. (Somewhat gently, at least.)

"Ten minutes! Show me your hand, Karkat."

He holds it out cautiously. Lalonde pretends not to notice.

"No itches, tingles, redness, swelling, sudden pimples, dry and flaking skin?"

"Uh. No?" Karkat gives his hand a dubious look. "Shit, now I'm doubting it. No, it's fine."

"Awesome! Time to get you greased up."

You make a face. "Thanks for the mental picture, Mom."

Karkat hands you his crabtop as he works on extracting himself from his deck chair, and you end up having to sit on the deck cross-legged to allow the monstrosity to land flat on your lap and not slide at an unfortunate angle to the floor. Before you, Kanaya is looking very uncertain as Bro advances on her.

"Can I help," Rose says pointedly, staring him down as she pulls herself out of the Jacuzzi, dripping everywhere.

"Sure thing, honeybunch." He hands her another bottle of sunscreen. "You can do John's."

Wow, clash of the titans. Even Romy pauses to look at them.

"Why, are you indicating that you would prefer to anoint a nubile, unrelated guest?"

"Darling, I'm about as interested in her tits as a horse in a nice steak. Which can't be said of you."

Rose puts on a scandalized and reproving look, as if she thinks she has any chance at all to make Bro feel an ounce of shame, like, ever. " _Father_ , are you insinuating I would attempt anything untoward? We're in _public_."

Kanaya has sunk into the pool until the water comes up to her mouth, shoulders hunched, and her face has a bit of the look of a mossy rock. You should probably be a good gossipchump and help... nah, this is way too hilarious.

Bro nods thoughtfully. "You're right, we're in public. Wouldn't want to make Pyrope double-blind."

"But what if my vision was miraculously cured instead? Would you truly forbid the attempt?"

Bro purses his lips at her. Terezi grins back, unrepentant. "... I'm an uncaring, ice-hearted monster, so yep. Get Jade to do you or I will. Roxy, you're on Kanaya. Rose, you get Karkat, have fun."

Karkat makes a face like he's not sure if he should relieved or not, but he does pull his t-shirt off over his head, so you make sure to be relieved for him.

It's pretty much the same thing that happened yesterday when they were trying to fit everyone into three dorms; it didn't matter that they'd be sleeping in single beds and sharing the room with a third girl, Rose was absolutely not allowed to share a room with Kanaya. Nope. We Love You, went the speech, And This Is Why We Cockblock. So the poor gal is exiled to Jane and Roxy's room, who she barely knows, and meanwhile Rose gets to have fun with Jade and Terezi. You're counting the hours before one of them switches and canoodling ensues.

Karkat and Gamzee were allowed to sleep in the same room because they don't frick, which makes no sense to any of the trolls, but the beds in _that_ dorm are narrow enough that you bet they won't be able to share anyway. Which right now Karkat probably doesn't mind.

Meanwhile two levels down from adult supervision you've got a nice, private double to yourself.

You wonder how safe it'd be to encourage traffic in it.

Man, the crabtop is pretty nice for lap-obscuring purposes.

TA: come on kk, 2top 2ulkiing. you'd thiink you'd be u2ed two me owniing you by now.   
TA: kk   
TA: kk   
TA: 2top beiing a liittle biitch already, and an2wer your damn me22age2.   
TA: pagiing karkat vanta2, found: one 2en2e of humor and the driied out dreg2 of actual coolne22   
TA: come the fuck on already you liittle 2hiit2ucker   
CG: no can do hes getting groped by rose atm   
CG: fuck yes you oil that bitch up lalonde fondle his dorsals harder   
TA: ok whiich 2triider are you   
CG: the maimed one   
CG: sorry to fail you so close to the completion of a rather awesome clonecest fantasy btw but if i pose with my left side to you you wont be able to tell   
TA: your tender attentiion to my need2 warm2 me riight up, wow. all ii ever wanted, a douchebag 2andwiich.   
CG: come on at least were hot douchebags   
TA: ii gue22 there'2 that.   
TA: what wa2 that about kk, r2 and oiily grope2 btw? liike ii2 iit your thiing today, here, have a raunchy 2exual fanta2y about people you never wanted two iimagiine liike that ever?   
CG: you vile lying liar as if you dont want to see rose pinning karkat down on the ground so he cant escape as she slathers cream on his naked back and massages it in   
CG: making him all slippery and glistening   
TA: .... iif ii diid ii maiintaiin iit would 2olely be for the hiilariiou2iity factor   
CG: of course i mean why else   
TA: of cour2e.   
CG: its softcore city in this joint its seriously unreal halfnaked and slick bodies everywhere you turn   
CG: its to the point im almost not minding that like half of them are related to me wowza   
TA: ok you can 2top tryiing two wiin kk'2 argument for hiim now. not that you're not doiing a better job than he wa2 but iit'2 taking all the fun out of iit.   
CG: haha okay   
TA: 2o   
TA: ro2e piinniing kk down, you 2ay   
CG: IT WAS ALL A VILE FUCKING LIE, AT NO POINT DID I TOUCH THE GROUND WITH ANYTHING BUT MY FEET.   
TA: oh my gog 2he totally bent you over diidnt 2he

"Byrd?" Karkat asks fake-pleasantly, kneeling on his chair with the crabtop half dragged up and off yours. "The next fucking time you answer my conversations, try to remember that I have a whole ocean in arm's reach for ease of body disposal."

He glowers at you and finishes pulling up his heavy monstrosity, and frees a foot so he can shove you away with it. You shrug, lips pinched so you won't smile, and pull yourself up. You've overstayed your welcome, alas and woe, how will you survive!

Oh well. Jacuzzi time.

The water is super nice, cool like a dream. Maybe you'll nap in here.

Okay, you'll nap in there once Jade stops trying to drown John in it, but the intent is here.

\--

Okay no it's not possible to safely close a single eye around the derp twins. You're pleasantly waterlogged, so you go get a towel and find a corner of deck to sprawl on.

Mm sunlight. Sunscreen or not you're going to burn so bad. Worth it.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] trolled truncatedGrip [TG] --

CG: HEY, BYRD.    
TG: dude im like two meters away you dork   
TG: so am i like forgiven now or is it official stop byrd from snoozing day   
CG: I NEVER FORGIVE ANYONE ANYTHING, I THOUGHT YOU KNEW. MY GRUDGES BURN AS BRIGHTLY AND AS LONG AS ANY STAR.   
TG: majestic   
CG: BUT OF FUCKING COURSE.   
CG: I JUST WANTED TO ASK YOU IF   
TG: ??   
TG: spit it out dude im not telepathic yet i know im awesome in all other regards but life had to nerf me somewhat   
CG: OKAY, I'LL JUST SAY IT.    
CG: ON THE TOPIC OF YOUR BATHING APPARATUS BEING SORT OF SEE-THROUGH IN THE BACK. (WHICH I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LOOK AT, SEEING WHERE YOU PUT YOUR TOWEL, THAT WAS SUBTLE.) WAS THAT PLANNED OR...?    
CG: I SEE IT WASN'T.    
CG: HEH.    
CG: NICE DIVING FOR COVER THERE.   
TG: shut up that was totally smooth i just faked it like it wasnt because the swag quotient woulda scared you off otherwise   
CG: JUST A VICTIM OF YOUR MORTAL PALLOR DECIMATING THE BLACK THREADS OF THIS STRUGGLING PIECE OF CLOTH WITH ITS SHEER LUMINESCENCE, THEN?   
TG: no thats just my dong   
TG: containing that beast does a number on just about any kind of fiber really the strain just redistributed equally to my perfect ass cheeks is all   
CG: HUH, IT'S ALSO SEE-THROUGH IN THE FRONT.   
CG: ...    
CG: I THINK PERHAPS I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING. UM.    
TG: asjimugyhvfgtu   
CG: WELL, I *DID* SEE IT COMING. OCULARLY.   
TG: for fucks sake karkat   
TG: i will throw myself overboard see if i wont   
CG: DON'T, YOU KNOW I'LL DROWN GOING AFTER YOU.    
TG: that was almost sweet   
CG: AND THEN GAMZEE WILL FISH YOU OUT, THE LONE SURVIVOR.    
TG: ..................    
TG: yeah ok im staying on the boat   
CG: GOOD.   
TG: dude eyes back on the pesterchum window   
TG: you naughty objectifier of poor sweet innocent girls everywhere   
CG: WHAT CAN I SAY. YOU DON'T DO HALF-BAD AS DECK DECORATION.   
CG: OKAY, NO, THAT POSE MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE THE SURVIVOR OF A SPINE OPERATION GONE WRONG. 

\--

At dinner this evening you have to perch on the edge of your seat so your burning shoulders don't touch the back. That'd be kind of really fucking unpleasant. Also next time you're not going to forget to put sunscreen on the tips of your ears.

It's still the best day you've had in just about forever.


	12. Chapter 12

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] has returned from idle! --

AA: haha didnt you just fall asleep five hours ago?? at least if i interpret the sudden idleness right  
TG: i did  
TG: i so fucking did  
AA: i thought vacations were for "sleeping and fucking timezones up the left nostril with all the force of your time swag until theyre flipping like a breakfast paste disk and dont know what the fuck"  
TG: you have learned well padawan  
TG: my asshole man lusus stays an ignoramus completely willingly

"Byrd, two minutes!"

It's Dirk in the corridor, not Bro. Fuck your life anyway. He won't let you get away with letting your face thump back down on your keyboard and going back to crick-in-neck sleep.

You're not even dressed. Mnuh.

He knocks again. "Byrd?" The door handle moves.

"Don't you dare!" you yell back. The handle returns to its original position with surprising but gratifying swiftness.

GT: Courage my man! Im sure the rays of the sun will soon have you all invigorated and ready to conquer the day!  
TG: its seven am  
TG: only assholes are awake at seven am  
TG: daylight sucks im a night byrd ok hell im even dersite   
TG: if i were any more nocturnal id sprout candy corn horns and an unfortunate tendency to talk about my feelings  
GT: Oi oi! Your aspersions are entirely unfair. Im awake at seven am!  
TG: case in point  
AA: byrd not that i care but if you dont get going youre gonna get in trouble and your webcams turned off so we cant watch it  
AA: anyway the ships internet will cut off soon wont it  
TG: fuck that noise im staying until i physically cant anymore

That's when the door opens behind you. "Dirk, for fuck's sake, leave me the hell alone, what if I were fondling the morning glory, huh?"

"Guess I'd drag you upstairs by the feet so you can keep jerking it as long as possible," Bro replies from the door. "I'm hella considerate that way."

And then he grabs you by the ankle and drags you off the bed.

You swear at him and grab for your blankets, but then the laptop almost follows so you have to let go. If it broke you would _drown yourself_ , no joke.

Your boxers are riding up already and wow do you not want your ass chafed on the carpet. "Okay, okay!"

"The most okayest," Bro replies agreeably, and drags you over the threshold.

Five minutes later you've crossed two staircases on your ass, back and elbow. Ow. When Bro drops your legs you don't even have the strength to trip him, your abs were working overtime trying to keep your head and spine from hitting or raking across the stairs and are all out of energy. You flop right there across the wooden flooring and groan, eyes closed.

"I'll tell Pops and Daddy you didn't even let me have any breakfast first."

"You inhuman monster," Dave agrees from somewhere off to your left.

"You'd probably throw it up!" Terezi chirps from more toward your feet. You jerk up into a sitting position somehow. You didn't know she was around, it feels awkward to... well. The flop-mopey while half-naked thing. Urgh.

"What are you even doing here?" you ask as you catch a wooden sword Bro was lobbing casually at your head.

"Training," she replies. She's sitting bent double over one leg, the other one stretched out so wide you wonder if she even has any tendons in her inner thighs because yours are whimpering in sympathy. Then again, it'd be a weird place for Terezi not to have tendons when she has them everywhere else.

You're on the main deck, about half a floor over the waves, which makes the breeze kind of cool even though you're at the back of the ship and the rest of it blocks some; the wind makes eddies that ruffle your hair without warning and then let it fall flat right in your eyes, which is annoying as hell. All the lounge chairs and little tables have been cleared out and piled up against a wall inside the dining room. The glass doors are closed, probably so the rest of them can enjoy their lie-in with minimal interruption from noisy Striderian torture. Bunch of bastards.

Dirk's stretching too, wordless as he grabs the handrail and rounds his back, slides into a low cat-crouch. Man, why is everyone so serious today. You sigh and start your own exercises, as well as you can.

(You can't grab onto your foot and rotate your waist fully toward the left. You can't counterweight yourself out of pitching onto your back when you rotate to the right too fast.)

"Can't believe you'd allow an outsider to behold me in my undergarments," you grouse, only couched in funny words so no one'll notice you're grousing.

"She ain't an outsider, she's an in-law." Bro turns to Terezi. "You wanna call yourself Strider-Pyrope, be my guest."

She cranes her neck (her horn almost gouges a hole in the floor) and grins. "Assume your name? What a quaint custom."

You're pretty sure she knows almost nothing about human marriage. From Dave's indulgent look, you're also pretty sure she really likes being called an in-law, purely for the word itself. Girl has a serious fetish. You try to imagine yourself -- well -- Dave in a police uniform. Probably a sexy one, for kinky roleplay. Yeah, this is a sex life you are really glad you will not have.

You try to wonder what Karkat would be into (you try not to wonder what Jade would have told you she was into, eventually, you try not to remember what you knew she was into and never got to try.) The deck is full of brothers grunting quietly as they warm up and the whistle of a wooden sword cutting the air, again and again, your head is full of sleepy fog and too much sunlight. You fell asleep with your shades on so you have them (Bro wouldn't have stopped to let you get them, you think) but it's still too bright out here, the air's too clear, the water glistens too happily.

You get up, start a series of sprints from handrail to handrail -- might as well do it right today, maybe it'll give you a few days of respite.

The ship moves under you, not a lot but enough that you know it's going to suck when you start the sparring.

\--

You were right. Your footwork is already sloppy enough on stable land, but factor in the waves and whoa, bruise party. You're not sparring, thank fuck, but Bro is being your dummy as you practice strikes and he has no problem being a dummy who hits back.

Dirk, Dave, and Terezi are having a three-way. Also chatting about Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Apparently Dave did a few strips for her, on the meteor. You kind of assumed Dave wasn't interested in it any longer and was leaving it up to you; were you wrong?

You're not sure if you're annoyed or not. It was weird being handed something Dave had grown out of, but having it be taken back is, hrrm.

Oh, damn it, self, he's allowed to still like talking about it, who cares.

"Ow."

"Focus."

"Hai, sifu."

"I should beat a counting song on your skull in Korean, you little shit."

"Says the oldest fucking weeaboo I ever -- ow, Jesus, that's the only elbow I've got left, what am I supposed to do next, hold it with my teeth?"

Bro whacks you another dozen times or so -- ankle turned too far out, shoulder out of alignment, fingers not positioned optimally on the yadda yadda.

"Okay, that'll do." It won't do. Your arm strength sucks, you need to stop attempting to block him. "Dave, you're up. Byrd, I gave Terezi the basics of flashstep yesterday, spot her."

He doesn't tell Dirk to do jack shit, you notice, but then again Dirk is disciplined enough to go straight into self-study, and ass-chafey enough about being ordered around by Bro on matters of ass-kicking to make it hella counterproductive to try. It'd make their finishing spar a bit too intense for a place so small.

Then again at least if they fell off the ship they'd land in _water_ , not on pavement a bazillion stories down. Crazy fuckers.

Sighing and rolling your sore shoulders, you go to spot Terezi. The sun is fuckoff bright. Stupid Pacific.

"By the way, Byrd," Dirk says between two swings, a few minutes later. "We're having a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff movie marathon tonight. That cool with you?"

You blink. Oh. Right. They were movies in the other universe. You seem to have heard mention of that. "Uh. Okay."

"You'll like them," Dirk assures you. He's staring ahead at the horizon as he sweeps in low, form perfect, but there's a faint smile on his mouth. "They're masterpieces."

"Well duh!" Dave calls out from where Bro knocked him on his ass. "I'm kind of the one who made 'em after all. How could they be anything else?"

Terezi shifts out of her starting stance, and your eyes snap up to look at her, and then you realize she's frowning in your direction, like she can tell you--

"No," you say, and wow the lack of care in your voice, that is some fine Strider cool, "you were not the one who made them."

Dave is dragging himself up on his feet, you see him from the corner of his eye. "Well it might as well have been. Oof."

... Fucking.

Hell.

"Dirk, spar," you say with great restraint, and then you jump at him, because beating on your clonebro is somehow more excusable than taking your sword to the railing until one of the two breaks.

He arches an eyebrow but he blocks you, slides his sword free, whirls back to get himself some space, and prods at your defenses, fast enough that you have to do some fancy, awkward as hell belly-dancing to get out of the way.

"Goddamn -- take your beating like a man!" you hiss after the third sneaky deflect-and-counterattack. His eyebrows arch; he stands his ground. You clash. It was a stupid idea; he's a dozen pounds heavier and his shoulders are -- it's not fucking fair how _built_ he is when he's _your age_ , it's not fucking fair that you know he'll just keep growing more solid and you'll just -- _oh but you're built to be much faster,_ you're not faster _now_ and you don't want to be _faster_ right now anyway _,_ you want to --

He's only really using one hand. You'd be on your ass already otherwise. He's only using one hand and he's not using the other hand to punch or shove you even a little.

You go for a headbutt. A second later something is stomping the hell out of your instep and then you're flying ass over teakettle. Bam.

"You okay?" Dirk asks a moment later as you fight to breathe, appearing over you, a hand rubbing his forehead. At least he'll bruise.

You've landed flat on your back and no matter how often it happens and how well you know you'll be fine in a minute, you still can't keep yourself from being all _oh shit I can't breathe._

You're so _sick_ of training.

"Byrd! Are you okay?"

Great, Jade is in the gallery that goes around the ship. (Jane's with her, but what do you care about looking like an ass in front of Jane.) Awesome. Perfect. Just what you needed for your morning to be radiant.

Just when you were starting to breathe somewhat normally again Terezi walks up and prods you in the solar plexus with her cane. Ghhk.

"If you're quite done indulging, Mister Strider, may we resume my lessons?"

She holds out a hand. For a moment you consider not taking it.

Goddamn but you _are_ a miserable little turd today. You let her haul you up, and turn to limp your way to the railing. Your back is still smarting.

Dirk stares at you for a little bit. You can't make yourself say something, you don't even know what you'd say. Eventually he just shrugs to himself and goes right back to practicing kata. You sigh through your nose and go back to watching Terezi.

She's not doing awesome at it, but it took you several weeks to truly get the technique. She's pretty fast naturally, though, and she compensates with that, which camouflages some of the issues.

"Fuckin' hell, Pyrope, I can't tell you what you do wrong if you cheat!"

She purses her lips at you. She doesn't start in on one of her stupid legal roleplays, which you should be thankful about, you're sure, but fuck.

Jade and Jane are still watching from their corner. What the heck do they want, it's really not that fascinating. Are they that bored?

Wait, you forgot where you were for a minute. Yeah, they probably are at that. Awesome, you get to be entertainment.

You bet they'll even welcome your other self's ridiculous masterpieces of misunderstood crack-genius, if they're that entertained by a bunch of too-pale assholes getting their...

... asses handed to them by...

... Jade is watching Dave.

It's not just the spar she's watching. Bro gets barely a glance. She's chattering with Jane, but her eyes are on Dave's body.

On his ass, really.

"Byrd," Terezi says around a sigh, "could you pay attention--"

"Ask _Dave_ ," you say back, and shove away from the guardrail. You drop the wooden sword on Bro's bag in passing -- you're barely not angry enough to throw it -- and stalk your way to the other side of the ship, the other gallery. Fuck that noise, you're going back to your bedroom and you're sticking a chair under the door handle and you're _biting_ the next asshole who knocks.

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

GG: byrd?? :/  
GG: whats wrong? you ok?  
TG: im fucking fine  
GG: uh huh.  
GG: i believe you super believingly :////  
GG: come on just talk to me, you know ill get it out of you eventually  
GG: byyyyyyyyrd come on :'( did terezi say something? or dirk?

You take the cramped service stairs at a jog and you don't consider blocking Jade. Not even temporarily. Of course you don't. She's _Jade_.

She's _yours_ , her and John, Dave gets Rose and being real, it's fucking fair, right?

GG: am i gonna have to follow you, buddy? >:(  
TG: im tellin you im fine  
TG: fine as daves ass  
TG: as a connoisseur of such im sure you can tell thats plenty fine right?  
GG: oh my god tell me youre not doing this because i looked at daves butt a little!

Yes, you want to say. No, you want to say. You fling your door open, since there's no one to hear it, and then slam it closed behind you.

GG: id look at your butt if you were wagging it before me being all manly and stuff, you know :/  
TG: great were interchangeable that is exactly what i wanted to hear thx jade however did you guess  
GG: ok, now youre being ridiculous and also kind of petty.

You grit your teeth. You pace around your bed -- all five steps and then back that you can take in the narrow as fuck passage between the bed and the wall. It's not long before you bounce off the wall and fall on the mattress. You let it happen, flopping with your full weight, hard enough to make the frame groan.

Sproing. It fails to be all that fun.

TG: i guess yeah  
GG: :(  
GG: sure you dont want to talk?  
TG: ok why not!  
TG: you never looked at me like that when we were dating  
GG: oh for fucks sake davesprite!  
GG: i was younger and less horny, for one, and for two your ghost butt wasnt exactly that butt-like!!  
TG: ...  
GG: sorry. byrd.  
TG: no its fine its true enough   
TG: i mean whats up with asking for another label were confusing people here just when they were well used to this very simple and uncomplicated classification here i come demanding a moniker thats got nothing to do with my previous appellation i mean i coulda gone for vade or deva or evad or *junior* or *mark two* what was i thinking

... shit. Why did you hit send. Why.

There's no response for a while, not even the little "your friend is typing" message. Shit.

GG: ok i see youve got some stuff to vent out, thats fine, i understand that, but im not gonna be the one you vent on.  
GG: ill talk with you later.

\-- gardenGnostic **[GG] stopped pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --**  


Aw, hell.

"i have a butt *now*," you send, because you're a dumbass and also because it's... almost a joke... if you squint... and jokes are kind of ... apologies?

Okay no, just because you can't let a zinger go unsaid no matter how much worse it'll make things, it's pathological.

Jesus. She's your _ex_. Why do you want her to be looking at your ass, that is a stupid thing to want. You are stupid, you are a pile of human-shaped stupid with a ridiculous center of creamy stupidity, your bones are made of high density moronism, your brain is a great dumb mass of _what_.

You just.

You.

Just, it's. When Dave was all casual about -- what he said, you wanted to punch him, you didn't even stop to think about why, you just wanted to punch him.

He was so casual about claiming Alpha Universe Dave's movie for himself. Even if it was a joke. Even though you used to think like that, back when you were so new at being Davesprite, it didn't matter which of you, you guys were the same you, and so long as it wasn't a Game Constructs Stay Out zone it would amount to the same fucking thing no matter which one did the thing, any of the things.

The SBaHJ Moive is not Dave's.

It's not yours either, and what if one day you were going to decide you wanted --

No, this train of thought will go nowhere, you're ending it here.

Fucking Dave. Fucking Dirk and his third Dave, like there weren't enough already, like the world needs that many of you. You don't care how awesome and therefore in demand you...

... no, it's not even feeling right to front to yourself.

Fucking sucks.

You log out of the ship's net and bury your face in the pillow for a good long teenage sulk. You figure if you're behaving like a cliche tantrummy brat you might as well own it.

Fuck, but you're hungry.

\--

A couple of hours later you get hungry enough to venture out. You're cautious; you don't feel like you could handle apologies yet and even less like -- urgh -- _socializing,_ but your stomach is boring a hole through your lungs and going for your trachea and if you sigh soulfully into your mattress one more time you're gonna find a way to wriggle out through a porthole that would barely admit your head and drown yourself.

You sneak your way to the kitchen -- the staircase up from the crew quarters where you're bunking pretty much opens right behind it, so it's not _difficult_ sneaking. It gets harder the second you walk in, though, because one of the Crockberts is there.

You play it casual. Little wave as you go to the fridge, yep, so smooth.

"Byrd, good morning. Mentioning that lunch is barely two hours away will not help, will it?"

"C'mon, Mister Man, you've got a teenager." You're not sure which one he's got. Maybe Jane never had a _devour everything_ stage. Um.

He chuckles quietly, but doesn't stand in your way. He's busy cooking. Okay, good.

Gamzee is also here. Jesus fucking _Christ_ you did not see him, how the fuck did that happen?

He looks even more like a creepnasty zombie than usual. His face is totally blank behind the paint -- not smiling vacantly, the way you've seen him most often. Not ragey either, you guess that's good.

You stare at each other for a few seconds and then he turns back to the counter and prods away at some liquid sauce thing in a pan. You decide you will not run from him and if he wants a fight he can have it (haha with Egbert around, shyeah right, so brave,) and dump your armful on the table to attempt some sicknasty sandwich confection.

You get sandwichey guts kind of all over the table, but you get sandwiches too, eventually. (The crusts stay on. You got no patience for this and you're hungry enough they even go down okay.)

You eat one right there, before you even put things back where they came from, and then you make an effort to clean the table, not looking at Dadbert, and you pick up your second and third sandwiches and bite into them both in one go as you make your escape.

"Byrd?"

\-- shit. "Mmph?"

"If you're free now," he says, and taps the wall, where a... chores list is taped, aw fuck. "I'm not sure how laundry has managed to pile up so high in such a short time, but there you have it. The boys' dorm is especially, ah, odoriferous."

You swallow your mouthful, eye your sandwiches. Siiiigh. Urgh. You guess it needs doing.

If you're lucky you'll look too busy to attempt conversation with.

"Yeah, okay."

\--

You do the adults' suites first, since they're higher; you wrap Bro's nasty underwear in a shirt off the floor, and then you get to John's dad and Rose's mom's master suite and welp you really should have gotten a laundry bag, if there was any, and also tongs. Mom's undies are at least tied off neatly in a plastic bag. _So glad_.

Rose is in Roxy, Jane and Kanaya's room -- with Kanaya. You do _not_ stay long. Oh god, your eyes. There was _decolletage_. Her and Jade and Terezi's room is thankfully empty (which you determine after standing at the door like a tool and trying to listen in through solid oak.)

The guys' room is also empty. No John, no Dave (thank fuck,) no Karkat, and you knew Gamzee was downstairs. (You suppose either John or Karkat would have been tolerable, but all in one you're more relieved than disappointed.) The pile you gather is not any more sizeable -- actually you fail to locate enough dirty underwear, compared to the other rooms' ratios -- but it's way more smelly. Why are dudes so gross.

You hear Dave and Dirk's voices in the corridor and dodge into the staircase with your awkward armful, and trudge down as fast as you can. (You think you hear a "Good boy" from the kitchen as you gallop past.)

Lower deck... that staircase starts _here_. You shoulder a door open -- okay, that's a broom cupboard, _here's_ the other staircase -- and go down into the _bottom_ deck (why is it not officially called the _lowest_ deck? It would make more sense to you.)

Down here they didn't really bother making it pretty. It's all neutral blue-grays and angles and cheap linoleum. You shoulder another door open and oh, yay, the laundry room. An empty basket is already out.

Cloth catches on the corner of the dryer and the ship bounces a little on a wave, and, your lone arm being kind of already busy, you go down like a sack of elegant and graceful bricks, almost straight into the basket. Your legs dangle out from the waist down so the edge presses painfully into your hips and your upper body is flopped ridiculously into your most fucking fragrant of loads.

"I hate my life," you groan into someone's briefs. You hope they're at least Karkat's, but you don't like your odds.

Okay, this is Kanaya's shirt, she will not begrudge you using it as a pillow. Nope, won't. You're too fucking exhausted to extricate yourself right now, or hold up your head.

You kind of wish you could vent to Kanaya. She's not involved, she has no horse in this race, you bet she'd just listen and nod and let you be as silly as you wish. She's too polite to tell you how much to your face, it'd be perfect.

Only you've got this niggling feeling that it might be the same as draping yourself seductively across her lap and asking if she needs a relaxing shoulder massage, or like, her face papped.

Stupid trolls.

Stupid you, stupid Dave, stupid Alpha universe Dave, stupid Bro and Dirk, stupid Jade. Especially stupid you.

"Should I say it," you muse. The ship is still moving happily with the waves -- nothing that you think should alarm you (it's alarming anyway) -- and it makes your stomach tighten a bit.

Or maybe that's the edge of the basket.

You hope you don't get sick in the laundry. Those sandwiches were perfectly adequate, damn it, it'd be a right waste. At least the laundry is in the right place for washing it afterwards.

Should you say it. It's practically a dare at this point.

Yeah, dares are also on the list of things you are pathologically unable to resist.

"How could it get worse?"

You're almost disappointed when nothing happens.

Your stomach hurts from the position and your legs are going tingly with blood flow constriction. You regretfully start looking for somewhere to put your hand and push yourself back up that is not covered in panties.

Something goes "pop!" over your head and then several heavy points of -- you're not sure -- land on your back, and you jerk, and then needles pierce through your shirt and a bit into your skin and something goes " _rrrreeeow!_ " right in your ear.

You flop back down, staring at nothing like a total moron. More needles happen to you. Delicate cat paws shuffle on your back.

"Gcat," you muse. (Hi Rose's bra.) "G-fucking-cat."

That asshole is kneading at your shoulder blades, just between the scars your wings left. Your shoulders twitch; for a moment you even feel your wings arching along, and then a warm round weight. That _son of a mothball_!

Only there's more than four paws on your back, and the tail that whaps you in the face looks pretty black.

You heave yourself up and upend the basket on yourself, showering yourself in laundry; a cat yowls in protest and then holy shit it's in your lap.

It looks up at you and throws you a wounded, betrayed look with all four eyes.

"Nyao."

"Dude, my back is no one's personal throne. Those are the rules of Striderland."

You shove the basket off your head. Gcat is washing his creepy white paw with his creepier green tongue on top of one of the washing machines and looks completely unconcerned. Should have known you wouldn't get him.

Siiiigh. You nudge Mutie's flank with the back of your hand to try to get him to dismount; the asshole just flops on his side across your knees and bats at your hand. At least his claws are sheathed.

Now that you think about it, you don't remember a cat carrier being mentioned in any way during the trip. There wasn't one in the apartment, there wasn't one on the plane with you and the Lalondes, and there definitely wasn't one in the truck with the rest of the trolls and furniture. "Where the fuck did you come from?" you ask the cat, who rolls on his back and makes motions with his paws to invite you to touch his tummy. Yeah, right, you are totally not wise to that slashmurder trick.

You... maybe don't mind Mutie _quite_ as much as Gcat. It has nothing to do with enjoying being used as a self-warming seat and everything to do with how he was Rose's constant companion for the four months you spent locked in that doomed timeline, how he would manage to drag smiles out of her even after you both knew you were both fucked and there was nothing to be done about it, that she was even more fucked than you were.

You trail a cautious finger on his little skull between his weirdass four eyes, and then you slide him off your lap and into the laundry, where he flops happily. Then you get up and close the door in a hurry, because losing two felines in the ship's machinery is exactly what you need to make this trip fun for the whole family.

Sigh.

When you log back on (on invisible, haha what a tool) and check Pesterchum, all the Lalondes are on idle. You... guess you'll finish sorting out the laundry first, and then you'll tell them to come and pick up their beast.

Sigh, bis repetitae.

Someone made a very clear chart of which tags mean which settings and how much powdery shit goes on top of what, and there are several washing machines so you separate things into piles. Mutie peeks into the cupboards when you look for detergent; you almost close him into two, and then you do close him into the third because hey stop being in my legs, cat, and he stays there calmly until you feel bad and let him out.

Gcat keeps washing his ass on top of the dryer. Damn but it's hard work for a radioactive cat to stay pristine.

\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is back from idle! --  


Huh. Okay, you're pretty much done sorting, might as well bite the bullet.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] --

TG: yo rox  
TG: birdiepoo my main feathery dude!! this is a p surprising surprise tbh are u stealin mah voidy trick  
TG: whats up broson?  
TG: idk where the porn hub is atm sry  
TG: im facepalming irl  
TG: only not really cause if i let go of the washing machines door itll crush my head srsly why wont the bitch stay stuck in place need some kind of shit to prop it open  
TG: are u asking me 2 come down & hold it open 4 u?  
TG: no  
TG: hells of no  
TG: no washing machine door shall thwart a strider for long im gonna own the shit out of it just you wait   
TG: it will rue the day it decided to you know what lets cut this metaphor here  
TG: *arches the fuck outta left eyebrow*  
TG: so just wondering here what did yall do with that four eyed freak cat i mean it did come out of the game right  
TG: huh  
TG: idk i was all for releasing it in the labs cuz thats where mine lived but rosie was like no hell be lonely without his plague of freaky cats lets keep him in the house but then it was moot cause on the second day he disappeared like ninja  
TG: you prolly missed the announcement, rosie was all oh no cannot show my feels 2 the world & went 2 angst in private  
TG: she might have talked abt it w/ peeps in private windows i guess??   
TG: why?  
TG: wonderful   
TG: guess that means youll have to improvise a litter box then  
TG: rox?  
TG: sry hold on

You thought she'd be more interested. Huh.

A cat winds through your ankles and you stumble a little, glare down. Oh hey, it's Gcat. What the fuck does he want. You stare at him with suspicion and drop a dirty sock on his head, which he disappearifies before it hits. Welp. The mystery of the Lone Sock, solved. It was this furry douche all along.

TG: theres smth happenin out there  
TG: huh  
TG: like what

You're done loading the machines. You close them, then open one of them again, fish Mutie out by the tail, close it again, and fiddle with the dials. There it goes.

TG: like a coupla ships?  
TG: jade tells me theyre hailin us wonder if theyre ok  
TG: im goin up to the pilots room  
TG: siiigh k

You're not sure what to do with the cats. Well, Gcat will do what the fuck he wants to do with himself no matter what, but Mutie should have a harder time walking through walls. Might just leave him locked up in here...

Then again if you take your eyes off him you bet Gcat will spirit him away again, and Rose will -- well it'd be a bit mean to go "hey I found your cat it's fine" and have it poof away before she can even confirm with her own eyes it's not dead of wild raccoon or 18 wheeler.

"What do you think, four-eyes? Yeah, I'm talking to you, nerdball. I could decide for you and here I am, not only saving you from extra rinse but even asking your fuzz-brained opinion."

The cat looks up at you and then starts winding around your ankles again. Okay, no way you can go out the door without him if he's sticking so close. Gingerly, you lean in and slip a hand under his chest to attempt a one-handed oozy-beast pickup.

You wonder if he's not part-dog, because he doesn't even squirm when you almost drop him, and once he's on your shoulder he just drapes himself there and starts grooming your ear with his raspy hell-tongue. Urgh.

Okay. Time to go out into the wider world, and, like, perhaps meet the natives even.

You still don't know what you'll say to Jade or to your bros. Well, no, you know you owe Jade an apology. You're just not sure if you want to give any to your asshole siblings (then again do you have any other kind of siblings?) Maybe you'll just... coolly pretend nothing happened and see how they react.

Yeah. That's a plan.

Maybe later you can kidnap John and have some brohood bonding times over trivial shit. You're sure it'll help. (You're not fretting about your ability to bring out some horny from Mount Teenagedoom, no matter how stalled your man engine is right now, but you're not sure you want to have to worry about Karkat and his potential feelings. You're just... kind of raw about your heart quadrant at the moment.)

... Did you just actually think of heart quadrant as something you had, even as a joke. Okay, no, it's time to go. You lean to the side so the cat doesn't slop off you and open the door, just in time for Gcat to land on your head and finish unbalancing you toward the wall.

Just in time to hear the gunfire ringing down the staircase.


	13. 13 - Day Sixteen Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, and here you guys thought you'd signed up for family feels and teenage angst. .____.

For a too-long moment you're struck completely dumb. You kneel there like a tool with a cat on your shoulder and a cat on your head as gunshots keep cracking on the deck above.

Running steps, several, heavy, and you can't really tell but _you can tell anyway_ , they're not any of yours.

Steps on the stairs. You throw yourself back into the laundry room, your hand up to keep Gcat from falling. He slips anyway to become your new kitty hat, his paws on your shades knocking them askew and _those are automatic guns outside_ so you captchalogue them, hat-cat and ear-warmer-cat both. (You tag them FELINE OVERLORDS for sylladex indexing purposes.) You just, nowhere fuckin' else to put them and ooooh _fuck_ , where are you supposed to hide in here, the light's still on. You slap it off but the corridor still has little lights on so you can't come out, and then you hear them, one person, two.

They stand at the bottom of the stairs for a minute or maybe a century (it's unnervingly unclear to you at the moment) and then you hear one of them move away. In the direction of, _shit_ , the engine room. They probably want to shut down the ship to make it easier to capture.

You perch on a dryer, silent as possible. Someone walks down the corridor, pauses at the door, swings a flashlight perfunctorily across the laundry room as you attempt to become one with the corridor wall, then leans back and turns to keep going. Okay, so, plan -- let them do their thing, and report to their buddies that they have it under control, and _then_ take them out one by one and unfuck whatever they fu--

A crackle of green lightning blinds the hell out of you, and then a cat yowl deafens you, and the contents of your sylladex burst forth all over the fucking place. A bottle of apple juice ricochets off the doorjamb to bean the pirate in the temple.

 _Jesus motorboating dick nipples_.

The cats are way out of the bag. Also, yowling. Also your shit is everywhere on the floor. You recaptchalogue Mutie (FOUR-EYED FREAKACUTIE) (Gcat can fucking fend for himself, the asshole) and jump off the machine in the detritus of your life. Your foot slips on a Game Bro you kept for ironically sentimental reasons and you end up doing the splits ow motherfucking ow. The pirate's gun waves toward where your head was a second ago like it's confused.

Your katana is out in the corridor.

 _Your_ katana, the one that used to be you. You haven't used it since. You can't.

You're not carrying anything else.

The pirate reaches down for it and you dive like an eagle and snatch it up. You do a roll, which is a bad plan because the corridor wall is too close but not as bad as doing a belly flop and offering your back. You come to a stop on your shoulders and the upper half of your back with your ass and feet propped up on the wall and that means during the half-second he's blinking and wondering what the fuck you can shove off the wall, rear up on your shoulders, and kick up under his jaw.

If you could breathe this would be the perfect time to go _Shoryuuken_. (no wait, it's Chun Li who kicks -- never mind.)

You roll back onto your feet with your shitty katana in hand -- fits so well -- and he might be shaking his head like his brain got rattled but he brings the gun to point at you, so you swing.

The blade gets lodged a little way into the side of the barrel and you shove up, twist to get the gun out of his hand. You expect your katana to break any second now. It's a law of shitty swords and Davehood.

The second dude is charging at the two of you. You let the first dude's bigger weight shove you back, and then you twirl and let him keep running himself into the laundry room, tripping on your shit as he goes.

The other dude is almost on you, and man, he's huge.

You captchalogue a washing machine, decaptchalogue it immediately. It hits him in the chest with a noise you don't want to think about and he's down with barely a grunt, the machine perched at an angle on top of him. You don't have time to check if the edge is crushing his trachea or what because the other guy is _shooting at you jesusfuck get out of the doorway_.

Someone's yelling down the staircase. Someone not yours. Reinforcements are imminent.

This is a very real gun, which can kill you very real dead. There's no more extra lives, no more going back in time and making it unhappen.

This is a very real pirate threatening your very real family.

What would Bro do _what would Bro do_ \--

The pirate bursts out into the corridor and _shit_ you dodged to the side away from the staircase and the engine room, there's nothing but locked doors at the end of this corridor, there's nothing here but narrow walls and the two of you.

He's going to shoot either way. You flashstep toward him, ricochet off the wall. There's no space.

Just enough for your knee to find his temple and for your elbow to hit the top of the door when the two of you fall right back into the laundry room.

Things go crunch. You barely feel the impact. You landed on him.

You landed on Gcat's tail.

With a hiss like Satan's forges the space warps around you and your dazed enemy.

Holy _shit_ , saltwater up your nose. A slap of cold. Under you the pirate dude starts flailing to resurface. You kick off his belly because you need to be dragged under by an asshole who thinks he's drowning like you need... well you don't need it.

You ditch your tennis shoes (can't captchalogue them in the water, damn it, they were brand new) and kick your feet to float farther away. You're ... yeah, there's the yacht, Gcat just popped the two of you forty or fifty feet to the left, looks like. Two or maybe three long, low-to-the-water boats are tied to the back of the yacht; another, bigger one is waiting out of Kalashnikov range, another circling around the prow with some dudes riding on the front like they think they're gonna jump up like highwaymen on a carriage. They're waving guns around. They also have their backs to you, so they're not seeing their guy or you. Cool.

Your shades are pinging you. Yep, totally the right time.

\-- gunningGorgon [GG] invited you to memo ahhyo me hertiez MOTEHRFUKKIN PIRATES PARTTITY --

\-- gailyTerminating [GT] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

GT: Where the fuck are you.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

CG: BYRD, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU  
CG: THERE WERE SHOTS   
CG: DID YOU HEAR THE SHOTS   
CG: YOU BETTER HAVE HEARD THEM IN TIME TO HIDE  
CG: DO YOU NOT SEE THAT GORGEOUS CHAT INVITATION, HERE LET ME INVITE YOU AGAIN:

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] invited you to memo ahhyo me hertiez MOTEHRFUKKIN PIRATES PARTTITY --

CG: BYRD SPRITE CHUTEFUCK STRIDER.  


\-- ectoBiologist [EB] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

EB: dude, you'll be all left out of the plan if you don't join in right now!!   
EB: haha come on already  
EB: asl?  
EB: especially l. your bro's being fretty about that.  
EB: buddy?

It's hard to read while keeping an eye on the pirate. He's sort of swimming, but it's not efficient. He's staring at you with wide freaked out eyes -- you'd think it's his first time teleporting! -- so you wave in friendly neighborliness. The katana's still in your hand. You don't know if he still has his gun. If he does, you hope he's one of those idiots who buy into the myth of "oh no it's wet it can't fire anymore now."

He does still have his gun. He yells something at you and starts swimming in your direction, the gun held out of the water and vaguely at you. Like, what? Does he _still_ want to take you hostage?

You dive under him and poke him a couple inches deep in the thigh. It's neat how much faster swimming works when you remember the aerodynamics of your body in flight. There's almost zero water resistance to the blade when you keep it properly straight.

Whoops, that was a gunshot. Doesn't hurt; he must have missed you. You slip the blade up between his thighs until the back of it is pressed against his balls (eurgh eurgh unclean, forever unclean) and resurface, hair glued to your shades and still expressionless.

(You don't feel expressionless, but the cool water did fix some of your excess adrenaline issue.)

"The gun. Throw it."

He's frozen.

"I will cut you open from asshole to mouth, buddy." (Wrong, his pelvic bone would stop you. His balls, perhaps not so much. You turn the blade so the back rasps against his shorts.) "Gun. Water. Now."

He lets go. Glub glub, have fun little fishies, don't shoot anyone now.

You get out of his grabbing range using his guts to kick off of, again. His leg's bleeding, he won't chase you. You swim away on your back, batting your feet slow and steady, watching him.

\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] started pestering truncatedGrip [TG] --

Goddamn you _are_ loved. You're just a _little_ busy to chat now, but you guess a "yo still alive" wouldn't be amiss.

GG: I see you.  
GG: Can you be at the starboard prow in five minutes? We will get you.  
TG: yeah that is a thing i can do  
TG: provided no one shoots me  
GG: Don't worry about that.

You swim on your back, with your legs only. It's harder to correct your trajectory when you can hardly see where you're going, but you go faster that way, strain your back and neck muscles less, don't get as breathless.

Also you can concentrate on how much you are totally not freaking out about going from laundry and sulking to shanking pirates in the open ocean. You feel gypped that none of them are in costume.

TG: roger  
TG: casualties?  
GG: One of Dirk's computers. He is not pleased. :B  
TG: k  
TG: stand by now   
TG: swimmin in progress  
GG: I'll inform your family you've exhibited signs of life and contact you when we're ready to extract you.

You don't bother answering, just keep swimming. You aim for the hull, and then you follow it -- gives you some cover. It's hard because while the ship has slowed down a lot, it hasn't stopped yet, and it'd be way easier to just float and wait for the ass end to come in reach, only that's where the pirates have boarded.

When you glance back, the pirate is making his awkward way to the waiting pirate mother ship. He'll be a while longer, it's pretty far.

GT: Jane tells me you're alive. Cool. Now I only need a location.  
GT: I've been looking in cupboards and dryer machines for the last five minutes and only found a pancaked asshole under a poor beleaguered appliance.   
GT: I swear to God if you're hiding under a bed and giggling to yourself you will never sleep after six AM ever again. 

... Wow, uh. Worried.

TG: nah im swimming after the yacht  
GT: ... How did you get *out* of the yacht.  
TG: it was  
TG: iit waaaas  
TG: shenanigans  
GT: That's code for I'm embarrassed to death. Spill.  
TG: sry bein paged in another window  
TG: brb with more exciting adventures!  
TG: (ps calm yo tits mother hen we got enough species in the strider aviary already)

Hopefully it was "dismissive asshole" enough to reassure him. Would he fret if you told him you were fine and could totally handle your own rescue in so many words? Perhaps. That's unsettling. You managed the game, after all.

Well, sort of.

For chest-stabbity values of managed.

You're _almost_ (another minute or two!) where you should be when someone on the yacht whistles at you, sharp and low. "Byrd!"

A motor roars and one of the pirates' low assault boats circles back around the nose of the yacht. Fuck. You swim harder. You think you see a flash of Jane's hand over the railing, signaling you, but you won't -- aw, fuck, they saw you.

You keep your sword under the water, and you stop swimming so intently, staring at them, bobbing on the waves from their boat as they do an U-turn and come back at you. Assholes are grinning.

A couple of them lean over the railing in your direction like they're trying to grab you in passing as the boat roars past, splashing you in the face. Okay, apparently the name of the game is try to get Byrd waterlogged enough to be docile and stupid enough to get away from the hull. One of them with a red hat gets out some kind of megaphone and goes, " _We have a hostage! Put down your weapons!_ "

Fuckers don't even _have_ you yet! That is seriously insulting.

In the water, one against six or seven, though -- yeah.

GG: On my mark, dive, and *stay under.*

You blink furiously up, startled and half-blind with water, but you can't see her over the railing.

You can see some of the upper deck. Mom Lalonde is walking out onto it.

On the farthest loop of their figure-eight path from you, she decaptchalogues a motherfucking bazooka.

GG: MARK!

You're already diving holy little Jesus. All Lalonde women are terrifying. You put one meter of water between you and the surface, fight your buoyancy to try to put in more; you still hear the _WHOMP_ , still feel the way the water shivers around you. You eel with all the slinky grace of your missing sprite tail toward the yacht, eyes squinched almost closed in the salty water, as long as you can stand before you need to resurface and breathe.

"-- but what if you be all to hauling, and I be teaching at those--"

"Gamzee," you hear Jane saying, no-nonsense and muffled, "swing the rope and _pull him up_."

You grab the rope. (Surprise it's another noose. Does Terezi make nests out of the things or what. Haha.) You prop a foot in the noose, wind your arm tight around the rope, and grit your teeth when you're pulled up so fast you almost end up crouching and do end up with rope burn on your biceps. You then get to bounce off the hull with your shoulders, back, knees, elbow, and basically any part that sticks out even a little bit. You're twirling too. Ugh, dizzy. At least you get to observe a lot of assholes swimming for it. The pirates' assault boat is in three pieces.

You're up several meters in a crazy short time. Your arm gets stuck between the rope and the edge of the railing, but Gamzee -- braced with a foot on the railing -- stretches out his long-ass freak arm and picks you up by the collar of your tanktop. You suddenly feel an uncomfortable sympathy for all cats everywhere, holy hell, is he trying to strangle you?

He dumps you on the deck just beside some KO'd dude in a wifebeater. The round end of Jane's war fork is kinda bloody; as you watch she swings it in a wide arc to keep three pirates at bay, herding one of them right into John's hammer. Wow, if that one wasn't a skull fracture, shit -- you struggle back to your feet, ready your katana.

" _Now_ can I go, sister?" Gamzee -- _buzzes_ , holy shit creepy.

"No -- you -- can't!"

He slips under her swing like a boneless reed under a gust of wind to plant his foot in some dude's face and send him hurling back into a nearby wall. Jane swings her war fork up under the last one's jaw's. Teeth break.

You can catch glimpses of a lot more pirates starting to converge on you through the glass to the reception room. Fuck, fuck, fuck. None of them are shooting, though they are waving around guns -- of course not, Jane's their meal ticket for the next twenty years and probably John would make for a nice spare.

The yacht is too wide open, no defensible position anywhere on the main deck. Jane signals the two of you to a corner where you won't be exposed from being right in front of open doors or standing in the gallery; you flashstep there without thought. A rope ladder almost lands on your head and when you look up it's Karkat and Terezi, yanking on knots to secure it.

"Gamzee I swear to fuck if you go and massacre them I will _tell Dad_ ," Karkat hisses in a whisper. "Byrd? Can you climb?"

You uh. Purse your lips a bit. Considering how well you did with metal rungs back when Jade brought them to the apartment. Yeah.

"Don't think I'd _EYAGH!_ "

Oh, there's a barricade of lawn chairs on this side's gallery. When a pirate tries to climb on it he gets a porcelain vase dropped on his skull from above. There's a rattle of Kalashnikov, you don't know who from or at. You get to see all this from the enviable position of a sack of potatoes elegantly draped across Gamzee's bony shoulders.

You end up sprawled and drippy on the floor between Karkat's and Terezi's knobbly knees as they crouch behind the railing. Gamzee's head is tilted forward like a charging bull to keep his horns from showing over the railing and he moves like a spider, body low to the ground and his limbs at vaguely creepy angles.

John drops onto the deck with a little surprised oof, like he still finds it weird that he can't soften his landings. Karkat grabs you under the armpits and hauls you a few feet away from the railing, so John can move. You help by kicking blindly at the wooden floor with your wet bare feet; he trips and sits a bit hard, you land with his knee in your spine, between your shoulder blades.

You kind of want to grin up at him and giggle. Holy shit you're alive.

Roxy and Jade are in sniper positions one floor up, on both sides of the ... sort of tower thingie that contains the pilot's room, rifles in hand. Rose's mom is perched in an open window in the pilot's room, and she waves down at you. She's in a two-piece swimsuit with polka dots and her bazooka is still propped up on her shoulder. You blink up at them, and then at Karkat, and then at Rose because she went and inserted her face between yours and Karkat's.

"Status update if you please!" she whispers with ferocious cheer. You'd almost think she was -- oh god no -- having _fun_. That or about to make you pay for not mentioning your wounds.

"Wet and bruised," you report dutifully after a second of thought to assess yourself. You're not actually sure, you're not even feeling the bruises much just yet. It'll come later, you're sure. "Also I shanked a dude in the sea, but last I saw he hadn't attracted any sharks, so."

You're still holding your katana. You captchalogue it quickly, almost sheepish. This deck's got to be safe and... well, it's a pretty shitty katana.

That was once _literally_ part of you.

Yeah, you're putting it away. It's weird enough you haven't broken it yet, you are not tempting fate any longer than you have to.

You don't see any of your brothers. Your heart totally doesn't jump in your throat. You figured they'd be here first thing and you're not sure why, Striders don't need coddled. "Where is everyone?"

"Bro and Dirk are in the engine room," she says first, like she _knows_ , "keeping it working; there was some damage. They've barricaded the staircase. Dave is keeping watch on the back with Kanaya. Mr. Crocker is at the till, Mr. Egbert is holding out in the kitchen downstairs, and since you are now safe it's time to go and extract him."

"Finally!" John goes. He crabwalks closer and claps Gamzee on the shoulder. "Whatcha think, bro?"

Gamzee's eyes have gone heavy-lidded, almost thoughtful, and then he starts to smile. You feel Karkat stiffen under you.

"Gamzee--"

Augh, is this going to devolve into diamond drama again. Shit, you hope not, you're in the middle here. You sit up, but you're sitting between his legs and it'd be way obvious if you skittered off now.

Gamzee is staring back at Karkat, bland and silent. You don't get him, yesterday you were sure he'd give his left nut for Karkat to talk to him and now it's borderline 'who are you, bitch.'

" _Jane Crocker!_ " someone yells from downstairs. " _We have your father!_ "

You can see the mood on your deck change from giddily excited to _oooh you di'nt_. Jane's eyes go flinty; Jade reloads her rifle. Mom Lalonde up there is smiling, mouth closed.

John is scowling, but compared to Gamzee's face it looks almost childish.

"Gamzee," Karkat says again, with an odd trollish note thrumming there almost too quiet to hear. "Dad wouldn't want you killing people."

"Uh, yeah, that is a thing I can confirm?" John says, looking a bit weirded out, but he stays where he is, his arm slung across Gamzee's shoulders. Gamzee's eyes are orange and not lazy-bored enough, and something tickles down your spine in a way that reminds you of spiders and killer centipedes.

Karkat's eyes harden. "But he said no damn thing about their fucking kneecaps."

John slaps a hand on his mouth to smother his first burst of shocked laughter; Gamzee doesn't bother, and Jesus but he's loud.

Your eyebrows arch. "They do still have to be able to drag themselves off the boat," you point out reasonably.

Jesus, are you really sitting around discussing the pros and cons kneecapping pirates. What is your life.

No, really it isn't even on the top ten list of weird shit that's happened in it. Okay, move along.

Gamzee's sudden grin is unsettlingly wide. "Said no damn thing 'bout their arm hinges either, did he?"

"Can't recall anything to that effect," Karkat says, and then you figure out that he's honestly pissed off, that he does have an anger mode that doesn't fall into histrionics or blowing off steam, that this hard restraint is bad news.

Here you thought he was squeamish, but apparently when he's really pissed off maiming becomes an option. This is actually kind of hot.

TT: To your positions, gents.  
TT: MOST STERN REMINDER TO BE CAREFUL.  
TT: YOU CHILDREN NO LONGER HEAL BY MAGIC.  
GC: N3V3R D1D! >:]

You watch them all ghost into place. For lack of anything better to do you follow Dave and Terezi to the stern end. (You cross paths with Kanaya, who's standing guard by the blocked staircase, lipstick tube in hand; she nods at you.)

"He's my _uncle!_ " Jane growls over the railing. You think the pirate yells something back, you're not listening, who the fuck cares, it's just wasting another minute before things can happen.

GC: G4MZ33 GO  
TC: no need to be telling at me twice, chica  
TC: NO MOTHERFUCKING NEED AT ALL.  
GC: 3V3RYON3 BR4C3 FOR 1T!!!  


You don't know what the hell you're bracing for, is the problem, that'll learn you to miss big swathes of chatlog.

It's a feeling at first that maybe there are clouds passing over the sun, that maybe it's dusk, maybe you're falling. Maybe -- maybe you want to throw up and maybe there's something just behind you, breathing on the back of your neck, maybe the corners are darker and there's something in them.

Terezi curls her hand around your wrist, squeezes. You try to still your shakes.

"Chucklevoodoos?"

"Mmh."

On her other side there's Dave, and you twitch a little seeing him in the same crouch you're in, same knee down, sword held before him at the same angle. (When did you get your sword out? You don't remember.) Terezi is holding his other hand, you think.

Karkat can't hold your other hand because you're fresh out on that side, but he bumps his shoulder into yours, rough and awkward. His eyes are angry slits as he stares through the cracks at the pirates milling on the sparring deck.

Your shirt is full of spiders; it's not sweat making its way down your spine, you're sure it's blood, you're going to touch it and it'll be blood, thick and tacky and, and you breathe in through your mouth even though there's no smell; it helps a little somehow. There's something tracking you down, there's something, fuck, no there isn't, they'd have to have passed Kanaya and that broad is, she's not, she can't have --

And then Jade goes "Bec! _Go fetch!_ " and then hello pandemonium.

A crackle of power -- on the lower deck people yell in shock, muffled -- they're inside -- and then another crackle and Bec is back, his teeth planted in some asshole's leg as said asshole and a second pirate hold Mr. Egbert's arms behind his back.

You move with Dave, mirror images, flashstep in with sword edge first.

Your target's hunting rifle shears in two with a noise oddly like cut silk. You land, smack your shoulder into the wall (this deck is too narrow!), turn. Half of the magazine is on the floor along with the barrel. Can't shoot anymore. Cool. (You want to throw up. It's Gamzee, you tell yourself it's Gamzee.) Dave's target is holding the kind of handgun that looks like a pocket cannon, even though it's now just as fucked as the rifle, but thick as it was, it sharded on impact; Bec yips, teleports away. Fuck, you think you saw red on his coat.

The first half of Dave's sword lands on the floor with a discordant chime.

"Whoops." Dave glares at his sword, and then shrugs and resettles his stance. You shrug with him (your heart is in your mouth, what the fuck is it doing there, this is nowhere near that bad yet.) Ain't like you both don't know how to handle half of a blade in battle. It's a quirk of being a Dave.

Your black headband-wearing pirate is still way close and even though he's holding onto Egbert's arm something fierce he still flips around and swings his rifle butt straight at your face.

You parry with a sweeping pommel-strike to the trigger guard; he yells when his finger goes crunch. You're kind of boxed in here, between Dave on one side and Egbert in front and him kind of blocking your right and he's furious enough he's gonna try to hit you with the rifle again --

Snarling, Karkat lands on him feet first and then snick, sickles around the neck, and when the man stumbles back he headbutts him hard in the face. (It's not a good day for Black Headband Pirate's cartilaginous parts.) You scuttle out of your corner in a hurry, eyes a little wide, heart hammering. Karkat is still hanging off the dude's neck, feet in his guts; there's blood, you think human (but you wouldn't know with Karkat, would you, you wouldn't know until he falls.)

Karkat's sickles are scissoring their way deeper in the man's thick nape flesh with each moment of struggle. He's gonna nick an artery if the asshole keeps fighting -- no, he's jumping off, he's being charged at -- you flashstep in, katana held point first, and you miss because the dude was not where you were aiming for on account of the spectacular haymaker Egbert the Elder just unleashed on him.

Wow.

You think you stepped a bit on his junk when you braked. That was _not_ steady footing. You end up between Black Headband Pirate and Purple Wifebeater Pirate once again. Purple has a machete as long as your arm and Dave's blade is hardly that long and you -- you're at the enemy's _back_ and you don't know where to strike that wouldn't either kill him or make him angrier. (You can't _think_ , what's wrong with you.)

Terezi doesn't have that problem; she winds around his guard, slashes up his arm, and then she's in his face and it's not so much a smile on her lips as it's a rictus.

The scream is pretty indicative of the exact second Purple realizes her teeth are the real deal, and they're aiming for his face.

He stumbles backward -- straight into you and your raised swordpoint, and you let your sword angle with his weight rather than allow it to pierce any deeper. He's heavy; you both fall, the sword jarred almost out of your hand by his weight, and then you can't breathe; the guard digs into your ribs. You kick on instinct and try to pull free but he's squirming and crawling away from Terezi and right on top of you and there's a _live fucking blade_ in the melee --

Egbert grabs him by the collar and socks him one in the jaw.

Bam, down for the count.

Headband is trying to crawl off, choking and wheezing pitifully. Karkat stalks him with his bloody sickles held out, knees oh so slightly bent, ready to pounce.

Another wave of sick terror-rage rattles up your spine, Dave's spine, and Headband yells and scrambles right over the guardrail and probably onto his buddies below.

Dave grabs you by the elbow and hauls you to your feet as Egbert lifts the pirate pinning you off the ground and marches his dazed ass to the guardrail. You let out an entirely sincere whoop when he grimly pitches him overboard on top of a knot of his friends.

They're milling about, leaving the shadowed inside of the ship, the dining room, the pretty corridors. You count -- huh, eight, nine who boarded? And probably another half-dozen on the boat still circling and freaking out with their rifles and rocket launchers, the one boat Lalonde Senior didn't -- _boomf_.

Okay no never mind, a half-dozen in the drink. Lalonde Senior doesn't approve of any potential rockets she can't launch herself, it seems.

Another two pirates stumble out of the dining room. One of them is limping fast as he can and the other one's arms are hanging weird, like they're not really in their sockets anymore.

You catch a glimpse of Gamzee wandering his wobbly way down the guardrail on the lower level, a club in each hand for balance, hear the purring rev of a chainsaw.

Still hidden from them, Terezi lets out this grating cackle that makes you realize how inhuman the undertones of her voice truly are. Karkat doesn't participate in the scare-off, but at this point it might be overkill. (Also he's too small and blunted to be the scariest.)

Kanaya steps onto the deck, elegant as ever with her chainsaw in hand. Another nausea-inducing pulse of chucklevoodoos and they break, a mad rush for the boats tied to the back.

(Huh! Either Jade or Roxy has shot one of the boats' mooring ropes off, so there's only two of them left. It'll be fun piling themselves up on that.)

"Hey, motherfucker." Gamzee has one of them by the arm. Oh, shit. Karkat goes tense as a strung bow beside you, his claws screeching against the metal of the railing. "Pick up your homie, yeah?" Gamzee says instead, almost calm, as the man frenetically pulls to free himself from his grip and doesn't manage. "We ain't gonna be littering all up on boats as don't belong to us, are we? _Pick up that filthy infidel before I smash his skull in your nug and chuck both your meat costumes into the bath_."

The pirate grabs his unconscious buddy's arm and then Gamzee lets go and he lands on his ass, though that doesn't slow his escape down much. They topple into the last boat left and all of you start to whistle. Jane steps out onto the deck between Gamzee and Kanaya and yells, " _And stay dang gone!_ "

You race back inside and pour down the staircase after Dave and Terezi, race right back out onto the back deck. You're giggling like a motherfucker.

"Oh my god, why are we so fucking epic," you and Dave chorus accidentally. You're in too good a mood to get bothered so you hip-check him off course and wrap your arm around Maryam's fine waist. You swing her around in the riskiest dance move ever with your sword and her chainsaw still out, and she stares at you in shock and then laughs a little, almost despite herself. You grin up at her.

"Let me spell badass, M-A-R-Y--"

Her face is green. She's still smiling, though. "And what do you call your underwater attack, then? That was pretty, ah--"

"Ninja? Yeah, it was totally ninja, glad you noticed. It's ridiculous how badass we all are, I mean, wow, they couldn't have chosen a worse ship to attack if they'd _tried_."

Terezi and Jane pass you, Terezi having dragged Jane into a mad waltz across the deck. Dave is offering Gamzee a leery fistbump. You and Kanaya exchange a look and then you both laugh.

"Shall we dance?" she offers, and bows over your hand. You blink down at your katana. "--Ah, Byrd?"

"--Wow, sorry, I was just. It didn't break." You don't think you could explain if you tried. You captchalogue it and curtsey. "I'd be honored."

You waltz like doofuses who've only seen it done on TV until Jade charges in for a group hug, and then there's John stealing you for a whirl and then it's a mess of people backslapping and cursing and laughing. Mom Lalonde kisses you on the cheek and Roxy smacks your butt.

When the crowd pushes you chest-first into Karkat next you totally take it as an excuse to sneak a grope to his ass and kiss his scandalized face, as loud and ridiculous as you can make it.

Gamzee stares down at you from where he's serving Karkat as a backrest, his arms crossed loose and possessive over Karkat's chest, and he smiles the scariest smile ever down at you.

"Oh my _fuck_ , Byrd, what the hell?!" Karkat's burst of spluttering unfreezes you soon enough, and after that you just _have_ to go and laugh at Dirk and Bro, who are _finally_ climbing out of the engine room and who totally missed the whole showdown like a pair of drama-impaired tools.

\--

"Police locked onto their emergency beacon!" Mom Lalonde announces from the door. "Also, I've got snacks."

Stuck in the middle of a cuddlepile of epic proportions, you doubt any snacks will reach you in time. Oh no, your rightful share of doritos.

"Well I guess it's... good? That they won't have to resort to eating each other before they wash ashore," Terezi muses.

You don't care super much about the unconscious pirates Bro and Dirk hauled out of the lower levels and dumped into the unmoored boarding boat, but you grimace anyway.

"You don't have to sound _disappointed_ , Terezi, I swear," you groan, and then you blink because Dave was laughing.

Well, not _out-loud_ laughing, but. Huh.

Jane follows Romy in with a plate covered in tiny cakes. The couches are enormous and the luxurious carpets pretty damn sizeable themselves and yet the room is crammed with assholes, barely any space to put feet and certainly none to do it without wobbling at least three or four times. You're not surprised when Bro pulls Jane onto his lap and steals the plate from her, hands it off to Roxy. "There. Pass it along."

Dirk is busy fiddling with his laptop and the giant TV screen that takes up half of the wall, but he still finds the time to glare suspiciously at Bro. C'mon, they're just as homogay as each other, what does he think Bro will do to his BFF, for serious. (She's pretty cute when she's blushing. Heh. You guess brunettes are just your type. Though if you catch yourself thinking Jake is cute when you get to the island... yeah okay let's not do that, self. You're not going to crush on every single Prospit idiot you know.)

(Karkat's Prospit too, isn't he? Hm.)

(No wait, so is Gamzee. Theory discarded with great prejudice.)

AA: so what are we watching tonight?  
GT: A true masterpiece of the human big screen!!!  
GT: Or so dirk tells me i never did get much in the way of sense out of this series myself but im not too inclined to thirty layers of subtleties.  
TT: I seem to recall you found it entertaining nonetheless.  
GT: Oh of course old chum! There was a preposterous amount of entertainment.  
TA: ju2t mo2t of iit flyiing over your head, ii take iit.  
TA: all 2ynced up over here, ready when you guy2 are.  
CG: GREAT! NOW HOW ABOUT EVERYONE CAN THE CHATTER.  
CG: ROSE, KANAYA, TEREZI, DAVE, IF YOU DERAIL THIS WITH MAKEOUTS, SO HELP ME.  
GA: And Here I Had My Heart Set On Seducing Dave Tonight  
TT: And here I had my heart set on seducing Terezi tonight.  
GA: That Was A Joke And Not A Great One Either My Bad  
GA: ...  
AA: no kanaya it was a good joke!! 0u0  
AA: well an 0kay joke i guess   
GA: Rose  
TT: ...   
TT: Heheh.  
GC: > :] W1F3 SW4P!!  
TG: i know none of you  
TG: what are you assholes doing on my chumproll oh no messenger intrusion ill call the web police  
CG: IT'S SO STRANGE, I WAS SO SURE I HAD INDEED TOLD PEOPLE TO CAN THE CHATTER. HERE THE WORDS SEEM TO BE ON MY SCREEN, NAUGHT BUT A PERSISTENT HALLUCINATION.  
CG: WE ARE SUPPOSED TO "ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE" OF THIS NO DOUBT NAUSEOUS STRIDERIAN SHITSMEAR. KNOW ONE THING THAT DISTRACTS FROM MOVIE EXPERIENCES?  
CG: WHEN ASSHOLES CAN'T STOP SNARKING AT THE SCREEN AND MAKING ASIDES AND *HAVING ENTIRELY UNRELATED SIDE CONVERSATIONS.*  
TG: oh believe you me bro im p sure itll do absolutely jack shit to detract from said experience

... Yep, you were right, it really doesn't.

It takes you until the middle of the first movie before you remember Mutie.

You lean in over Kanaya's lap. "Oh, Rose. Psst. Rose. Hey."

She can't seem to tear her eyes away from the gloriousness of the nancho party in full swing, but she tilts her head your way, a little. "Hmm?"

"Look what I found in the laundry." You decaptchalogue Mutie and drop him on her head. "I told you guys to check your pockets, goddamn, what if I didn't check people's pockets, huh, this would now be ruining a washing machine."

No reaction. She's staring at the cat in her arms, mostly expressionless, only a little puzzled like she's wondering which end to psychoanalyze him from. Um. You thought you'd be getting more of a reaction than th _holy fuck_.

Rose has just snapped out of her seat to hook you by the neck and crush you in sisterly cleavage.

(It also means you're crushed in squirming cat. Phhbt.)

"Oh my god. Dave, Dirk, I'm sorry, Byrd is now my favorite brother. Fuck the lot of you."

Roxy and Mom are also squeeing. You hear shuffling. Are they charging in for a group hug, oh god, this was a tactical mistake, this was a hideous tactical mistake. " _No hey guys I can't handle all this pussy guys stop I know I'm irresistible but--_ "

The only good thing that happens is that a half-second after Roxy lands halfway across your back the cat ejects himself from the hug with all the grace and velocity of a feral banana, and it's not your face but Rose's boobs he climbs clawingly on his way to escape.

From the swearing, it's a pretty fair bet he's landed straight in Karkat's soda.


	14. Chapter 14

TA: yeah your human poliice and mediiterrorii2t2 have them iin 2ome buiildiing2. but the healthy one2 are 2uppo2ed to be relea2ed 2oonii2h.  
TA: 2orry ii can't explaiin iit better, your legale2e ii2 even more annoyiing than our2.  
TA: ii feel 2o fuckiing 2tupiid not beiing able to par2e that 2hiit, god. iit'2 not even liike iit'2 anythiing compliicated!!  
GT: Shoosh shoosh my good man! Your brain is still stupendous amounts of brilliant even at its most rambunctious!  
GT: Why if being unable to parse these makes you a fool then what am i right? Haha.  
TG: you shooshin him now wow what does aradia think of this  
TA: thiink2 iit2 fuckiing hiilariiou2 that of all thiing2 to piick up from her he cho2e that one of fuckiing cour2e. ii mean iit2 AA, what el2e?  
GT: Why what is wrong with wishing to soothe my good pal sollux in the quaint and friendly manner of his people???  
TG: nothing buddy  
TG: yeah absolutely nothing  
TG: mentioning this for no reason at all but its amazing how you can really feel karkats absence in this chatroom somehow  
TG: but anyway re the pirates being let free wow terezi will be super rad amounts of pleased  
GG: well you know they dont have any papers on them but apart from that the police has no proof that they did anything wrong >:/ they werent even in anyones territorial waters i dont think  
GT: So they'll just be sent back home and get off scot-free?? Why the fiends that is dadblastedly outrageous!  
GG: yeah :/  
TG: its that or us coming out with them having attacked us and we punted them off the ship thanks to several aliens tho  
GG: yeah that wouldnt go well :/  
TG: meh i know  
TG: guess being trounced that badly is punishment enough  
TG: but like what if next time they attack people with a little less swag than weve got  
GG: yeah :(  
TA: nah.  
TG: ??  
TA: wont happen. because   
TA: of   
TA: uh. reasons.  
TA: fuck, my thiinkpan iis spliittiing iin liike three piieces, the a2ymmetriical a22hole.  
GG: you should go lay down!!  
TA: ii had a theory 2tarting to take shape about the piirates, liike why so many, and  
TA: other things.   
TA: but then downswing. welp.  
TA: and now migraine  
TG: dude you really need to go lay down youre typing all fucked up  
TG: youre not even giving us the normal amount of eyestrain with your goddamn hellquirk anymore thats just weird  
GG: and mildly alarming!! D: D: D:  
TG: anyway its easy to see why here and now and so many i mean its not every day that the crocker heiress goes travelin through those lawless reaches without any escort  
TG: visible ones at least  
TA: no that wasnt  
TA: no, i  
TA: fukc. briain. cannot screen  
TA: brigth  
GG: im loggin you out for your own good sollux. aradiall be with you in a minute so just close your eyes and wait for her, okay?  
GG: itll be okay, we can keep talking when you wake up. :)

\-- twinArmageddons [TA] is offline! --  


AA: ive got him thanks  
AA: jake can you go feed the tinkerbulls before they break into the bag and eat it all i had to stop in the middle and theyre pissed  
AA: as much as tiny faerie bulls ever get pissed but we dont want them deciding next step is getting into the hive thatll be annoying  
GT: Of course my lady im at your command! Ill rush over there straight away!   
GT: *doffs hat, bows*  
GT: Later gents! *gallops away like hes being chased by ravenous meat hungry faerie bulls*

\-- golgothasTerror [GT] is offline! --  
\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] is offline! --

GG: i guess ill go too i might as well get rid of my chores early in the day :D   
TG: eww responsibilities harley you repulsive fiend  
GG: it wont kill you to do yours either dave!! go go go!!! >:O  
TG: ok ok catch you later  
TG: yeah   
TG: sure   
TG: later

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] has closed the memo --  


\--

"Hey buddy! Where are you going? Don't tell me you're leaving, I wanted to visit your sweet bachelor pad."

You arch an eyebrow at John from your doorstep. He came down the staircase just as you were getting out. Hm. "Just gotta pick up the dregs of my sylladex from the floor. You're welcome to come with."

"Aww. I could wait here?" he says, arms crossed behind his head and grinning innocently. Yeah, you totally want him in your room when you're not there, that is not at all likely to end in whoopee cushions in strange places for the rest of the trip.

That is a downside of not being a floaty sprite anymore that you never saw coming, to be honest.

"Let me rephrase, you can come with me and then later visit my sweet-ass private castle, ooor you can sit here on the carpet like a naughty dog that peed on the bed and wait for me to feel like letting a friend abandoner like you in."

John grumbles, and then shrugs it off. "Okay, then! What the heck did you do with your sylladex, bro?"

"Weaponized the hell out of it," you answer modestly as you amble your way toward the lower level staircase.

"Ooh, cool."

... Yeah, cool. Shit, you didn't even ask Bro if the guy survived.

You consider, and then you bury deep, the thought that Bro might never mention it again, might have just dropped the body overboard for you and will never tell.

Bragging about sylladex shenanigans suddenly feels real fucking awkward. You shoulder past John and go down first so he won't see your pinched lips. "Nah, actually I'd committed the mistake of captchaloguing Gcat to keep it out of the way, and it, like. Didn't enjoy that. Didn't enjoy that very angrily."

John laughs a bit, but it's mostly sympathetic. "Whoops."

"Yeah. I was trying to hide, too. That fucking radioactive bag of fur and assholes."

"Man," John commiserates, and slaps you on the back. Thank fuck you're on the last step of the staircase now. You stumble out, hand casually in your pocket.

Then you guys turn left toward the laundry room and wow yeah, Bro and Dirk have swept things against the walls where they could do it with a foot but your shit really is everywhere.

The laundry room is a royal mess, too. The washing machine was moved on top of another washing machine, and it looks like it'll need some repairs. Welp, those are some nice dings and loose parts. At least there's no blood.

(Go you, you might have crushed some guy's trachea to death but at least he didn't leave a mess for y'all to clean up.)

It's tempting as fuck to just label everything Unholy Mess and put it in your inventory like that, but the second you actually need any of that shit, yeah, no.

"Okay, uh, let's organize things in piles, then."

"Sure! But I'm not handling your undies," he adds, toeing at a pair of clean boxers in the middle of your other clothes.

"I handled yours just yesterday. I feel so betrayed, wow. I give and I give and you take everything, what kind of relationship is this."

The little brat grins, and manages to kick your undies off his foot and into the laundry basket in the corner. Blargh, they were still perfectly wearable, like a little floor dust ever stopped you putting clothes on your ass, you'd have spent half your life naked otherwise. "There, there, Carmencita. I'll give you a... big bonus."

"Nice reminding me I'm nothing but the maid, Señor. That diamond had better be extra-big or no more naked apron for you."

John ruins the roleplay by sporfling majorly. You have to admit that if he had escalated it any farther you might have been the one to scream uncle. Fake-hitting on John used to be the highlight of your day on the golden ship before you got with Jade -- and a little bit during, to be honest -- but yeah, you've well moved on from that particular ill-advised crush and while it's still hilarious in small doses and _not in person_ , it's... You're not sure. You think you might be growing out of it, some.

Very slowly. At this rate you'll be graduating out of gay chicken sometime in your forties.

No, it's not really the gay chicken part, it's the cowardly, hopelessly lingering corner of your brain that was all titillated about gaining what-if material.

You think maybe in a few months it won't be weird any longer, just funny, but right now it is a bit.

Huh.

"Aw man, I think it's ruined."

You blink up at John, who pours the content of his hand into yours, and... yeah, he's right. Someone stomped the _shit_ out of that USB drive. The plastic casing is missing chunks and the metal underneath is warped, and when you thumb at the port it clicks loose in your palm.

"Yeah, I... think you might be right."

"What was on it? Maybe you can get it back somewhere else, I mean, the porn will be hard to download but hey."

You snort, half-hearted. "Nah, man. That was my Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff files. Most of it is still on the website, but there were... you know, notes and half-done pages and clipart things."

John is staring at you, making a weird pained grimace. You shrug and chuck the key into a wastebasket.

"Aw! Maybe Roxy or Dirk can save it?"

"Nah, don't bother." You turn away and crouch to captchalogue three of your new pairs of shoes. Maybe next time you should just leave them in your closet. That'll learn you to unpack properly. Yeah.

"Byrd?"

Aw, fuck, you never know what to do when John sounds all awkward and careful like that. The dude is a great friend but sensitive as a brick, and he seems to believe what you need more of in your life is tough love. He prods because he cares! Great, but you don't know what to do with him when he gets like this, and neither does he and it's always awkward as fuck.

Are you _blushing_? No, there must be a separate, completely valid reason why your neck is suddenly feeling too warm. Yeah.

"Uh. Are you. You know. _Okay_?"

You snort, can't help it, throw him a quick little half-smile over your shoulder. "I'm good."

John leans in, hands on his knees, and makes a dubious face down at you. "I am disbelieving this statement dang seriously, young man."

"Sorry, Mister Egbert, sir." Heh. You sift through a pile of random stuff and wonder if you don't want to throw away half of it regardless of any broken status. "Really, though. That's what's weird. I thought I'd mind more, I guess."

"Well, I suppose it's not like SBaHJ is something that needs lots of planning," he allows with a moue, "and it'll only add to the shittiness if your clipart stuff changes in the middle."

"No, I meant. I..."

You don't know how to say it. You're... not entirely sure what you want to say.

"Maybe it's just a today thing. Maybe I'll change my mind again tomorrow."

He prods you with his toes. "Which means, in non telepathy dude language? No, for serious, where is your mind at _today_ , dude?"

"Well, I." You hesitate, chew on dry skin on your lip, chew a thumbnail next as you try to word it right, and the more sentences you start the more you realize, that isn't where it started. "When I became a sprite. You know. I kept going with the comic, and Dave didn't care because what I did was what he wanted to do and... Iunno. He would have done it himself if I wasn't there. So back then it was, I was doing it because I had the free time for it, but the credit was kind of going to both of us?"

John crouches at your side, arms holding onto his knees, and peers at you in a way that's probably supposed to be encouraging. Instead he looks kind of constipated, but it's the thought that counts.

"But then recently he didn't seem interested any longer, and I figured, well, it's been three years, you know, and he's got a girlfriend to be busy with, and even when I was with Jade it wasn't like I slept when I didn't want to, so I thought he was dropping it and it was... like. Only mine?"

John hums and strokes his nonexistent beard and goes "Hm, yes, interesting, continue." You elbow him; he lets himself fall on his butt on a pile of old magazines.

"But then there's this movie made by yet another friggin' Dave, and it's like the epitome of SBaHJ and exactly what I would have envisioned with a few more years to hone my fucking craft, and."

"And?"

You shake your head. "I don't think I can explain it to you. It's weird. It's like... Okay, I know where it can go now, so I'm not interested in the trip anymore. Like, okay, the contents of this drive? I bet he did it years ago in his own timeline, and I bet it was exactly as I'd planned it or maybe even better, and I'm... Okay, then, he can have it."

You prod at the things on the floor, captchalogue a pile of CDs and an antique Game Boy, not even Advance.

"I was pissed as hell when I thought Dave was trying to take it back, but now I don't even want it anymore. And that was last week. How the hell does my brain even work, bro, I can't figure it out."

"Haha." He bumps shoulders with you. "Man, if you wanted to know that you'd go ask Rose. I don't get your brain either, bud, you're a weirdo through and through."

You bite at your lip some more, chew on the end of your thumb, pretend it's only casual and you don't even notice you're doing it and yeah, no, it _is_ toolish, might as well embrace it.

"Hell, yesterday I blew up at Jade because Dave said stupid shit. No, okay, that wasn't all because of SBaHJ or even, like, _mostly_. But, argh, fuck."

You rake a hand through your hair, groan, flop. John bumps his shoulder into yours again. Bump, bump, almost sending you flying the other way. It's somehow comforting. Heh.

"Um, yeah, that sounds, uh. Hells of complicated."

"Mnh."

You stare at your mess and try to think of nothing.

"But see..." Aw, bless him, John looks so serious, his cheeks are even a little puffed up, he looks like a squirrel. "I might not be able to guess at your whole life history with just a little information like Rose but I can't help but notice that, well. It's a Daves problem. Or probably? I mean, you felt different before that third Dave dude came up, didn't you?"

"Bluuurgh."

He nods like you actually agreed. Well, you kind of did.

"So maybe you should go talk to the Dave who's actually here. On account of Older Dave being, well." He doesn't finish the sentence, awkwardly; you both know it ends in "not." Not only is Dirk's Bro not here in this universe, at this point he has basically never existed, the new universe just rewrote him right the fuck out of everyone's history, that poor asshole. Then again, he was dead anyway? Parallel universe shit is so stupid complicated.

Point is, you know you could make SBaHJ into a movie now and you'd be plagiarizing no one but yourself.

"Goddamnit, Egbert."

He snickers. "Or should I can the advice and just nod and say 'That's rough, man' a lot? 'cause Karkat seems to feel like anything more is way inappropriate."

"Karkat is completely neurotic about his quadrant boundaries, man," you answer, and nudge his shoulder back. "Anyway, how's the brothers thing going? The shine of having to share a bathroom wear off yet?"

"Haha, shut up, you're just jealous 'cause my bros are more fun than yours! I bet you wish Dad had adopted you too."

You stare at him. "John. John no. No, John. I would not be an Egderp for all the swag in the world that Bro hadn't already nabbed. That's just, _no_."

"C'mon, you totally want to get up to tons of brofriendly fun with Gamzee Makara-Egbert and Karkat Egbert-Vantas."

Yeeeeep, all you need on top of _this_ morass of adolescent confusion is a sprinkle of incest. "I'll pass."

"You could be Byrd Eg -- oh god, haha, Byrd Egg."

It's so lame that you might perhaps even laugh a little.

When you're done with the shit in the laundry room, the wastebasket is full, but mostly with shitty old magazines and plane tickets that you forgot to throw away, a couple of capless pens and penless caps, exposed film, post-its with quotes that struck you as special that you've long since forgotten the context for. You get up to check the corridor, and blink. Karkat is sitting on the lowest stair at the other end of it.

"Dude."

"Are you two done?" he blusters, jumping to his feet. "Good." He won't look at you straight on. Huh. "John! If you're done with your m-- if you're _done_ , Dad's expecting us to give a hand in the dining room."

You idly captchalogue the rest of the mess as John slips by you and goes to his -- so weird -- brother. "Yeah, sure, what about?"

"Broken chairs and things. He says most of the damage is repairable and you learned how to fix some of that in school?" Karkat looks dubiously at him. "Because I had to tell him if anyone handed me a hammer I'd finish off the furniture, not fix it, and considering your track record about wrecking things with hammers is orders of magnitude worse than mine... Can you _really_?"

"What, of course I can! I was pretty good at my woodshop classes, thanks." He sighs, stretches his back, shakes himself. "Okay, Byrd, I'll visit later, Dad beckons. C'mon, Karkat, you can hold things in place, you'll see!"

He stalks ahead. Karkat pauses to give you a weird pointed look, and then goes, almost silent, " _Hah!_ "

You arch an eyebrow, tilt your head (like a bird.) "What?"

Karkat opens his mouth, looks at John's back disappearing in the staircase like _oops he's still in earshot_ , and then, eyes narrowed in a mean, vindicated way, he makes a lozenge shape with his indexes and thumbs, nods his head at John, points the lozenge almost aggressively at you. You groan, face heating a bit.

"Karkat, c'mon, what's the holdup?"

Karkat follows at a stomp. "It's your _stench_ , John, your noxious body odor, one wonders how Byrd could stand to be that close and not _die_ , now climb so we can get some air before you asphyxiate me."

You're left behind. Sigh.

The laundry was left at the bottom of the machines; it's still kind of damp in there, so you move the load handful by handful to the dryers and guesstimate the settings. You suppose nothing bad will happen if the clothes are _too_ dry.

You empty the uprooted machine, too, climbing up on the first washer to get there and balancing on your knees. It rumbles under you and you briefly worry it'll unbalance you, but it's nowhere near that bad yet.

It'd be kinda nice to make out on one of these some day. Hm. Maybe all those teen movies were onto something.

You go to the machine room next, to see if you can help with repairs, but Romy and Roxy and Dirk are already here, and Roxy's smaller than you and two-handed, she doesn't need you to slip into cracks Dirk's a bit too wide-shouldered to get into or hold her stuff still. You hang around for a few minutes, and then you leave; it's cramped enough with three people, and they're busy and you should go find something useful to do.

Maybe there'll still be furniture to move back into place. Hell, maybe John and Karkat need someone to move their repaired chairs or whatever.

You come out on the main deck between the saloon and the kitchen. Both Dads are here, one of them sweeping dropped flour into a pile and the other one washing some kind of weird utensil. (Then again beyond forks and knives and spoons and _maybe_ whisks it's all weird to you.)

"Uh, anyone need a h-- some help in here?"

You amended your joke mostly because you think they'd make "oh son no" faces at you, which, uh, you'll pass.

Okay also because you didn't even think before you said it. But it would have been funny.

"We're alright here, young man, thank you." One of them smiles at you. You _think_ maybe he's Dadbert. He's a little softer around the eyes, especially when he smiles. Gentler? You think. Maybe. You've been interacting with him more than with Crockpop, since Crockpop's demesne is the pilot's room and you don't usually have a reason to go there.

You wonder if he called you "young man" because he has as little of a clue which one you are as you do.

"Well, okay. I'll go then."

The bulk of the mess was cleaned up yesterday, before the movie, and you're going to suck at anything broom-related. Maybe if they need the carpets vacuumed in the dining room once they're done playing with wood and big tools, but that won't be for a while.

You should do as John said and go find Dave and get it out of the way.

"Can I have two apple juices to go please," you add as you step into the room. Egbert goes "hmm?", curious. Crocker says nothing, just flicks you a look and then dries his hand and opens the drinks fridge beside him.

"Gotta bribe someone," you explain, and let Crockpop tuck them both in the crook of your arm.

"Good use of resources," he says with a little nod, and sends you off.

Huh.

You go.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

TG: yo dude where u at   
TG: who needs to know  
TG: i do you assbutt

There's a beat without reply.

TG: huh  
TG: first floor back sundeck  
TG: be there in a sec

A glance through the glass door confirms that Karkat and John are there in the dining room, having a spirited argument. Karkat is waving a hammer around by the wrong end and probably ranting; John is laughing at him. Looks like fun. You jog up the stairs, because if you took them at a normal walk you might start dragging your feet.

He's alone, straddling a deck chair by the guardrail, someone's laptop between his knees.

You drop one of the cans on his shoulder, go to sit on the end of the deck chair, turned to face the back of the yacht. Your chin comes up to the guardrail; you see mostly a lot of sky and some water. You stick the can between your knees and pop the tab.

Another second, two, three, and he pops his. The two of you drink.

"Okay," he says. "You're--"

"Not pregnant."

He makes a face. Yeah, like you weren't going to see that one coming.

"Terezi is totally the babydaddy, sorry. Under the cover of darkness I thought she was Karkat, you understand. And of course she thought I was you. Mad passion happened."

He goes "uh huh," bland, uncaring disbelief. He's a bit annoyed. He didn't believe any of it, it was just the Terezi thing.

Downstairs on the sparring deck two wooden swords clack. You lean in to peer over the edge.

Huh. Speak of the devil. It's Terezi and Bro. He's in a defensive stance, letting her come at him. Their styles are way different; you're not sure how he plans to deal with her stabbing frontal attacks.

It's pretty fun to watch though.

Takes you a minute to notice she's smiling at him; at some point he quips something at her about fixing her footing and she retorts something falsely obsequious, calls him Stridelder; he snorts. He's totally flattered.

"Huh, they get along now."

"Looks like."

Bluh. Why's Dave not talking more. Dave of all people. This is weird.

The blood has been washed off the deck, but the wood is still scuffed in places. It'll take more than a quick wipe with soapy water to fix that, you guess.

"... First time I saw a troll fight, yesterday. They're pretty intense, aren't they. Like, wow. Feral."

"Fuck yeah." For a fleeting second he's almost smiling.

"Hot," you say, because it's what he's thinking, and coincidence, it's also what you think. Apparently you like 'em dangerous, who woulda thunk.

Dave sneaks you a sidelong look. "Hey, dude, my girlfriend, no leering."

You roll your eyes. "No worries, I wasn't talking about her."

He gets a weird look on his face. "Oh my god tell me you're not going after Kanaya. Tell me that. Please. Lie if you have to."

You stare at him. "Are you fucking _kidding_. She's my _bro_ , you asshole, gross."

"... Gamzee?"

You groan. "It was a generalized air of hotness, shut the fuck up."

He gives you a look like _yeahright_. It's mostly not serious.

If you keep going in that vein you're gonna squabble about nothing until you're both called away for some random chores.

Fuck.

Okay, gird your loins, self.

Besides it'll probably freak him out, which is always a bonus. Causing yourself to freak out in the process is totally acceptable collateral damage.

"Hey," you say, serious as you know how to be. "I'm gonna break the Strider code."

You can't even look at him. You pretend to gaze out at the horizon. What a fascinating and totally new sight, wow, this water looks so different from yesterday's and ... you're rambling again to distract yourself from shit, damn it.

"Oh no," Dave groans; when you steal a glance he's staring at you in either horror or distaste, you're not entirely sure.

"Oh yes," you reply grimly. "Emotional honesty and fresh feels all up in that bitch."

He lets himself fall back on the lounge chair, lifts a hand to hold his forehead in great, stoic suffering. (The fact that it also hides his face even more is totally an accident, you're sure.)

"Jegus. Can't you at least do it via Pesterchum or something. What's wrong with you."

You're tempted to make a crack about funny he asked, here's a list, but -- no, fuck, not like that. You don't want it to come across as whining, there's a problem on both sides that you need to sort out, it's not just your teen angst.

You stay silent for a little while, looking for words. He lifts his hand away from his face, and his head so he can stare at you. He's probably squinting a little, trying to read you; you wonder if he can, right now, if he has any idea where you're coming from.

It's so strange an idea, that you would know him but he wouldn't know you.

"Can I still chew my leg off and escape -- oh, damn it, you know what I mean. Hell. Sorry."

You smirk a little to yourself. "Wow, that's worth at least ten shut up and listen points on the Lalonde scale, but I'll be generous and give you a pass because it's actually pretty hilarious. Sadly you still can't escape, I bribed you with apple juice. You took it from my hand, you're fucked now."

He sighs, brings up a foot to prop on the edge of the deck chair. "Okay. Fire away."

... Yeah, only you still have no idea where to start. Uh.

"Iunno if you noticed yesterday morning at training I got kinda pissed off."

"You mean when you stormed out after losing a bout with Dirk? Nah, didn't notice at all."

You glare a bit. He's sipping at his can, trying to look unconcerned. Okay, breathe, Byrd. He's just digging in his heels, and like hell you're going to let him get away with derailing this. Acceptable losses are still exactly that.

"Wasn't Dirk I was pissed off at, it was you. And Jade too, later, but for shitty you-related reasons, so we'll pass on those cause they're none of your business."

"You just said they were me-related."

You sigh, short and sharp through your nose. " _Dave_." Goddamn. Why does he have to be such a -- okay, calm, breathe. "Stop being an avoidant shithead, it won't help, neither of us is getting out of this."

His brow furrows, the skin at the corner of his eyes tightens. "Then how about you get to the point instead of ranting about dire and spooky consequences with like, jack shit of substance behind them?"

Oh, he fucking didn't.

"You know what, okay." You know your voice has gone hard, and you know you didn't want a confrontation, you just wanted to sort it out and it'd be easier if you both could keep it calm and reasonable and neither of you even likes confrontations anyway, and _you're so fucking pissed off at him_. "You don't get to claim what any other Dave does or did with his own life as some kind of personal achievement anymore."

He splutters. "When the fuck did I --"

"Yesterday! I fucking quote, 'Well of course his movies are awesome, he's me!' No, _fuck_ you, he's not."

He sits up straighter, shoulders tense, hands fisted at his sides. "I never said he was, but what kind of fucking difference does that make? You watched those movies too, tell me they're not exactly what you'd make. He's us in another universe, that doesn't make him not us!"

You're not quite angry enough to chuck the can. It's still half-full of juice. You put it down under the chair, and then you turn in your seat to face him, and you lean in so you can glare at him straight over the edge of your shades, so he can see your eyes.

"He's you if you'd _lived without Bro_ or any _John or Jade_ and without any _Game_ to play, and I'm you if you'd fucking _failed_ at keeping your Jade and John alive and you didn't spend three years with Rose and a bunch of trolls being a _god of time_ , and if you don't think that makes a fucking difference then what the fuck happened in your timeline to make you such a self-centered _moron!?_ "

His jaw rolls; you can see him forcing himself to lean back against the chair, but he doesn't relax. You lean back a little, though you still don't turn to face the sea again. You try to calm down.

"They're really big differences, okay?"

"I guess," he allows after another ten seconds, half-hearted. "At least him, okay, not raised by Bro. Who the hell is he then?"

The attempt at humor is pretty lame. You huff out something that might perhaps pass for a chuckle. To, like, a deaf person.

He sighs, frame going a little looser. When he speaks next he sounds weary more than angry. "You never said anything before. In the game, even, we both agreed, and that was after you'd diverged for like, four months."

You toe at your can, gazing down at it. "In the game I thought I was going to die."

He doesn't say anything; you can almost feel him flinching, even though it doesn't show.

"It didn't matter because you'd go on. I was dead the second I left the alpha timeline, I was just waiting for the Game to get around to making it official. Trim off the dead branches of the timeline tree. Nice little spot of gardening, what a pretty yard you've got here. I'd die but you'd go on, and you were just me from an earlier save point. It was _fine_."

It wasn't fine, it wasn't, but you'd rolled with it anyway because what the fuck else was there to do about it? Complain? Refuse to lend a hand, get Rose killed as well this time around to up your score?

"And then I was a sprite. I was a _game construct_. What happens to a game construct when the game's over? It gets turned off. That's it, purpose over, sweet oblivion, at least we fucking won."

You rub the heel of your palm against your eye for no reason you can discern. Too much sunlight. Yeah. Must be it.

"It didn't matter because you were the real one and you were going to get out, and damn right I counted myself in that we, because _what the fuck else could I do_."

"Aw, man --"

You can't look at him, you won't, no. "You were the real one and I wasn't and fuck it, fuck you, I _want to be_ _real_ too--!"

"Oh hell. No, hey. Byrd. _Byrd_. Don't make me hug you. Do _not_ make me hug you. Jesus fuck where's everyone else, I'd even take fucking Gamzee--"

His hand is hovering over your shoulder like he thinks one of you will explode with contact.

Matter and antimatter. Parallel universe clones must never touch. Hah. Haha.

"Okay, is this good laughter or bad laughter, what the hell, you're freaking me out, stop. Byrd Strider _I will tell Bro on you_."

Oh god he's so freaked out, it's fucking hilarious. You burst out laughing in his face. (You might be sobbing a little.)

"Jesus." He's scrunching his eyebrows at you hardcore, fingers twitching -- touch, don't touch, run for the Bahamas? You giggle.

Then you wipe your face under your shades.

Then you put your shades in your hair like a fetching and fashionable headband to hold your tousled silken locks or what the hell ever out of your face, and you look at the horizon.

It's so blue out here. Blue and green. Makes you miss Jade's planet. (Rose's was sucky about normal-colored water, or non-blinding levels of light for that matter.)

"I'm good," you say.

"Uh huh." That doubtful expression. How does this tool ever think everything he feels doesn't make it to his face, again?

"I'll be better if you give me your juice."

He snorts. "Nah, you're fine."

He swings his leg over the laptop and the chair, and then you're leaning elbows against the guardrail in tandem, looking at the ocean.

"I'm going to call you Pinocchio from here on," he says -- just a tiny bit tentative. You offer your fist for a righteous bunp.

He obliges you.

"Wow," you say, without really thinking. "I actually do want to."

"What?"

You hesitate, for a second. Haha, you've already squandered all your Cool Strider Coins, may as well go for broke and destitute. "Be real. For a while I was pissed as fuck I wasn't still a sprite."

You can see how much he has no idea what to do with that. "Huh," he goes, brow furrowed once again. You shrug.

"Prolly change my mind again tomorrow. Being a sprite was rad as hell. I had those crazy ghostly powers to troll peeps with. Also a tail long as your mom's dick, that was swag as hell."

"Your mom is also my mom, asshole."

"... Are we talking Romy or some hypothetical Sburbian well-endowed lab here."

You stare at each other, and then he groans and hits his forehead against the guardrail, between his clinging hands. You smother a smirk.

"Bikini," he groans, tortured. The _asshole_. You join him in headbutting the guardrail.

Downstairs Terezi and Dirk are having a go at each other; Bro watches, sitting off to the side, but you think you catch him sneaking a glance your way. You hope you weren't loud or anything. Argh.

Dave heaves out a massive sigh. "Okay, I'll can the Dave Collective references."

"Mm. Thanks, bro."

... You still have that can of apple juice under the deck chair, and wow it just so happens you also have a faceful of awkward. Quick, you drink to forget.

No, wait. Argh. "So what do we do about SBaHJ?"

He gives you a despondent shrug, and drains his own can. "Iunno. Put it on hold for now?"

You nod slowly, more of a 'I hear you' than 'I agree'. "I kinda thought, I mean since we came back, that, like, you weren't into it any longer."

His mouth twists in a way you don't remember seeing before on him. You remember it on Terezi, that odd doubtful twist. Huh. Cute. "No, I still was. Am. I haven't really thought about it." He sighs, rakes a hand through his hair. "Seeing the movie was rad as hell, I just. Hm."

"Yeah."

"Can we talk about it later."

You crush your empty can against the guardrail. "Yeah, sure." Then you get up. "I'm going downstairs to check on John and Karkat. You?"

He captchalogues the laptop, pulls himself up. "Yeah, I'll see if Terezi is done playing yet." He bumps into you as you both start toward the staircase. "I'm not staying here either, you contaminated it with your touchy-feely cooties. This place is forbidden now. Blighted with a total dearth of coolness. How are we alike again?"

You bump into him right back; you spend the whole way down the stairs trying to shove the other one around, more or less subtly.

"Yeah, I wonder, I'm obviously much more handsome." You take advantage of your shades being up in your hair to bat your eyelashes and ducklips at him.

"You're uke is what you are, I mean, seriously, _feelings_? That's what you are, the uke twin. We should rename you Byrd Featherfluff Sashayer. Also you apparently _hug people_? I rest my case."

You're shoving each other on the sparring deck now, in a corner near the glass doors, and there's the dining room and the saloon and John and Karkat behind you, there's Terezi and Bro and Dirk looking up.

He wants to escalate this, he has come to the wrong dude.

"You don't gotta be jealous. It's not that hard," you say, "let me show you."

You might only have one arm, but you make it count, clinging as far around his shoulders as you can get, leaning as much of your weight on him as you can -- and then you rub your cheek against his like an affectionate cat and drop a big kiss on his ear.

Okay maybe his neck a bit.

He shrieks.

Just a bit, and right in your ear, but when he shakes free and you lurch after him, still ducklipping, you can see John laughing his ass off, Bro looking mildly despairing.

"Never do that again."

"Shh, bebe, let me soothe the ravages of your loveless life with my tender physical affection. We can snuggle in front of the TV. I will braid your hair. You don't have to be lonely--"

" _Terezi, help, hide me._ "

He grabs her by the shoulders, whirls her between the two of you; you stare at her, arch an eyebrow, and she steps out of the way with a bright hungry grin. You oblige her with an enthusiastic tackle of her beau on some convenient lounging cushion.

"No, stop, help!" You can see him looking around, desperate for rescue, but Bro will only groan and tell him to manage, Karkat is staring with a look of what the fuck on his face, and John is too busy laughing himself into the floor. "Dirk! Get me out of here, he's crazy, he'll kiss me again--"

Sprawled on top of him on the deck you nuzzle his spluttering face and purr right through his spittle, tender as you can, " _Who's uke now_."

\--

Later you go to get the laundry from the dryers and Karkat comes with you; apparently he will explore the brand new and exciting field of fratricide if he lets John hammer his fingers down one more time. He shows them to you as you make your way down, inflamed and full of righteous outrage.

They are indeed pretty bruised, though he can still bend them alright; one of the nails will probably be purple tomorrow. "D'aw," you say, and there's no one in this corridor on your floor, between the two staircases, so you catch his wrist and kiss his fingertips.

It's mostly because you're still in a good mood from ruining Dave so completely, and also getting that conversation out of the way.

You end up with your back hitting the wall and several dozen pounds of compact troll muscle pinning you there, and then he kisses you.

Fuck. Wha. Yes. Huh. ... Yes. Okay.

It's hungry and a bit clumsy from being so frantic. Frantic is, oh shit, hot. Pointy teeth nibbling. Is he purring Jesus his chest is rattling with scratch-grating noise, _is he trying to destroy you_.

He rocks against you a bit, you can feel his muscles flexing all the way from arms to chest to belly, you can feel his thighs straining, fuck, wow. You can feel his, _shit_ , you still don't even know what he has but it's all snuggled up to your dick through your shorts and oh.

His lips break away from yours and no, hey, wait, it was all warm and slick and your jaw aches a bit and you weren't done with it, okay.

"Where the hell did that come from," you say. Your voice is absolutely not shaky, for the record. Okay it's a little shaky. Warning, warning, tornado Vantas touching down.

"You need to stop making out with your clone," Karkat tells you, grumpy and red-faced, eyes skittering away, and then he just obviously gives up on pretending really badly to be cool and unaffected and he dives in to kiss you again.

His hands are in your hair, cradling the back of your head. His body, fuck, yeah, you're pinned, you're so pinned, your footing is bad and oh. Intense.

Your hips press back, tentatively. You're not ready, it's going too fast, your brain's not there yet; your body is screaming at you that who cares, this is happening now.

His tongue is all over your mouth, Jesus not your esophagus, can a mouth be devirginized because that's what it feels like, wow, wow.

He breaks away again, panting, presses his forehead against your shoulder. You rub your hand up his spine, to the back of his neck. You're both breathing too fast.

What now, shit, what do you do now, it feels so good but you -- you were really not expecting it, okay, it's a bit --

"Do, uh. This is. Public. I meant to say, do you want to. My room's next door?"

He pulls back to stare at you, almost nose to nose. His lips are still damp, shiny, plumper-looking. You can see the tips of his row of little teeth behind them. So fucking cute.

"I, uh."

Wow he's verbose today. You compensate. "I mean if we want to continue it'd be smarter is all. But it's fine if you, I mean, I don't -- fuck. Wow. Hell."

A chuckle shakes his chest; you feel it against yours, resonating through you. Oh. Oh hell, he's so cute when he's trying not to laugh, his eyes get all shiny and curve like half-moons, shit's too adorable, no, no, stop.

Then he lets himself laugh, adorable and chagrined. "Yeah, I think I'm gonna pass. I'm really sorry for being a bulgetease--"

" _Oh thank fuck_."

He blinks at you. You groan and try to liquefy into the wall.

"Not that I don't -- I mean, I'm sure it'd feel super awesome, I just, wow. You can't start things off with that level of unbridled passion, dude, my feelings are a delicate, fragile woodland creature and you barged in like, idek, a hungry hippo or something. I need gentler handling, bro, I'm a delicate princess. You scared me with your manly hunger. Look at me, I'm all aflutter, I'd swoon if you weren't _pinning me with your crotch oh god Karkat_."

"Oh Jesus," he says, and shoves himself off you, hands pushing against the wall.

He leaves them there. His hands. On both sides of your head, bracketing you, and you might play it up a tiny bit for the laughs but you're actually not certain your legs would hold you up too well if you didn't have the wall at your back still.

You let out a breathless chuckle. "Jesus, indeed. You need to stop being, like, surprise hot, you know, like hey I'm just a random cute dude and then suddenly nope my secret identity is SuperKarkat, my super power is gifting insane boners, I am powered by lust."

He rolls his eyes and -- thank fuck -- puts a hand on your mouth to keep you from babbling on. He's blushing again though. _So cute_. "Like you can talk. I'm serious, never hit on your clone again, I will not be held responsible for the flood of carnal hunger and surprise ass groping in the basement."

"But you didn't even grope my ass," you point out the second your mouth is free. Whoops.

He stares at you, red eyes piercing, eyebrows drawn. "... Do you actually want me to?"

Oh lord. The thought makes you go feverish and tingly all over, core muscles drawn tight.

You're still not... The thought of starting it all again. Um. You wet your lips, try on a smile. "Later, yeah? Let your fingers time to heal, dude."

He's nodding away like a bobblehead from the first word you say. "Yeah, okay, that works. It's a date. I mean not a date-date, just a my hands and your ass cheeks date, a date in a colloquial way for the love of Horrorterrors can someone kill me now."

"Can't," you say, and kiss his cheek on the way to the other staircase. "Zombie hands are too bony to be allowed on my sweet rump."

He grumps all the way down to the laundry room, but he comes anyway. You try not to think too hard about pushing him against one of the machines and kissing him some more.

From the way his eyes keep skittering off and finding yours again, you have a feeling you're on the same wavelength about that.


	15. Day Eighteen, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, I am stuck like a motherfucker on the second half of this chapter, so it ends somewhat not as neatly as it could and it might be a while until I find a way to unstick it. But I realized it's been six months since I last updated this fic, which is ... welp.

That dumb paper's been burning a hole in your pocket all morning, so when you peek into the second girls' bedroom and find Jade there and alone you're... well, not glad. Relieved? _About_ to be relieved, at least.

Also hella awkward.

You knock on the door frame; she looks up from her dog's back, who she's holding between her knees.

"Dirty panties removal service! You stain 'em, we smell 'em, tell me to shut up any time you want holy little Jesus please."

Knees tight on Bec's flanks, Jade purses her lips at you. You resist the urge to rub the back of your neck.

"... I come for the laundry."

"You're gross," Jade tells you, lips still pursed.

"Haha yeah." You deflate. "Um."

How come your smooth dies so fast around her. (Around anyone you like a little bit, actually. Bluh.)

She goes back to picking through her dog's fur or something arcane that you don't get because you're the farthest thing from a pet owner, entirely by choice. "Jane put up those cloth bags by the door, you just have to pick them up."

Oh, huh. You toe at one, peer into it. Lots of t-shirts and things. Awesome. (The bag is marked FLOUR. You don't wonder where Jane got it.)

"Jane is so sensible, wow. I'm swooning. That's a marriageable skill if I've ever seen one."

What the fuck are you talking about. Marriage with your ex-girlfriend's momcousin, when the last discussion you had was about how pissed off you were that Jade was ogling your twinclone's butt. It sounds like you're trying to make her jealous to get back at her, argh, shit.

And she's not even really looking at you, or smiling or anything. Wow, so this is what it feels like to be an air force pilot shot down over the ocean, huh. Impact with the uncaring sea in three, two, one...

"Urr. Jade?"

"Mm?"

She's still not looking up. For the first seconds where you stand there mentally squirming, and then she lifts her head and looks straight into your eyes.

You want to keep your shades so bad right now. But _you are the emotional honesty twin_ , and so you take them off and hook them to your shirt's collar, and then you spend the next five or ten seconds swearing at yourself, why did you do that, that was silly and meaningless and _argh_.

"I'msorryIwasanasshole," you say with smooth, forthright diction, and hand her your paper.

After a couple of baffled seconds she takes it, and then she laughs, and your muscles go loose all over. Oh thank fuck.

It's a voucher you hand-drew this morning, and it took you a lot of care and effort to make it look that shitty, thanks. It says "Voucher for One (1) Shut The Fuck Up Byrd You're Being An Assbutt, redeemable any time Byrd is being an assbutt." Decorating the sides are a series of dogs with lolling tongues making SBaHJ-style ham-mouthed smiles at orange crows falling down hella stairs.

Jade snorts at you with the elegance and refinement of a wild boar, and makes a show of folding the voucher and putting it away in her overalls' front pocket, a big grin on her face.

"Haha, thanks. Help me keep Bec distracted, he keeps zapping away when I try to put on the iodine, it's annoying."

Forgiveness. Phew.

You move closer cautiously, eyeing the huge polar bear she's straddling with totally legit mistrust. "How the heck am I s'posed to do that."

"Dunno, pet him or something!" She bends over her dog's shoulder again. You lean in to ogle, hand patting awkwardly at the top of his head. Wow yeah, that's a nice slice there under the fur, with some blood crusted in too. "I've cleaned it yesterday too but he won't stop running and licking at it, so it opened again. It's not in a good place for bandages."

Bec tries to turn his head to see what she's doing, and you tug on his ears cautiously, still expecting to be snapped at. You try to hold his muzzle facing forward. Predictably, after trying to shake you off for a couple of seconds, he zaps out from Harley's cowgirl grip and reappears a few steps to the side.

You sigh. "Argh. Sorry."

"No, he's been doing that all morning. Annoying!"

"You should bribe him with treats."

"Like he can't zap them out of my hand if he wants them!"

You watch uselessly as she corrals the beast again before you approach and attempt pettins, which you kind of suck at. Who knows where he's been, right. Ew. And you have white fur all over your black shirt now, that shit floats or something. You wouldn't be surprised if he deliberately teleported it on people, that furry asshole.

"So what's the plan for today?" Jade asks you as she tickles her way up her dog's flank.

"Well, laundry first." You shrug. "Then I don't know. Dave has John this afternoon."

She snorts. "Do you dorks trade off custody or what?"

Cough cough. "What? That'd be silly. Dave just mentioned it this morning in the chat is all." Well actually in a private side-chat specifically created for that purpose but. "Anyway it makes sense to coordinate, I mean, we wouldn't want John to have to juggle his wife and his mistress on his own, he'd drop one of us or probably even both."

"Pffff."

You pout a bit.

Bec is licking your hand. Eugh. Gross. At least it's distracting him from the sneaky iodining going on at his shoulder, so you suffer through it.

"I was thinking about hanging out with Karkat, maybe. I dunno."

The way she grins up at you, you don't understand.

Well, you kind of do but you wish you didn't. It's a _shipping_ smile.

"Like a date?"

"No! Just like hanging out while he does his own chores. And annoying him and stuff." You wish you could scratch the back of your neck, but your hand is all drooly. "And okay maybe sneaking in some ninja making out. If we can. But I dunno, he's been fun to hang out with so far."

Okay, now she's looking at you like you're a robot that refuses to work. Okay, _why_.

"So the plan is to hang out with Karkat... because he's fun to hang out with and you like him, and you want to spend time with him... With an option to perhaps make out... But not like a date."

You glower at her, and pull your shades back down on your face. You try to look disapproving but you have a feeling you mostly manage pouty.

"Well, okay!" She finishes cleaning up her dog, whose tongue you hold between two fingers (euuugh) and who is trying to lick your palm with the furled tip. "Why isn't it a date?"

You wipe your hand on your shirt pointedly, and then take off your shirt even more pointedly to lob it at the laundry bag.

"Because. Shaddup. Why are you even asking me that, is it even appropriate for an ex to think about?"

"Dunno, but it's kind of sexy, so you bet your tush I'm thinking about it."

You splutter. Damn it, how come she can still ruin you so easily! She's grinning still, dimpling, eyes so green; you feel a little twinge. Yeah, so, you used to be in love with that.

It was pretty nice. You're glad it happened.

"Harley, you massive perv."

"Hehehe. Just kidding. But I think it'd be super cute!" She sits on her bed, hands pressed against the edges, leaning toward you. "So really, now, why is it not a date?"

Sighing, you sit on, you think Rose's bed, facing her. "I barely know the guy. I mean, I know he's cute, and his rants are fucking hilarious, and he got the short end of the stick friend-dating Makara, wow. But apart from that--"

"But do you like him as a person?"

You blink at her. "... Yes? C'mon, I wouldn't mack on him if I didn't. At least not several times in a row."

Bec stretches between the bunks, tail waving in your face, and then starts nosing at the laundry bag. Mm, delicious sweaty underwear. Dogs are so gross. The grossest.

Jade makes a dubious face at you and stares at you over the rim of her silly round glasses. "You do know that going on dates with someone is for figuring out if you like them like that, right?"

Grumblehuff.

"Riiight?"

"Bluh bluh stop nagging. I liked you for months before we started going out, it's weird to do it the other way around, okay?"

The evil witch from hell cracks the fuck up.

"That's -- that's so _romantic!_ Ahahahaha! You're such a romantic, oh my god! So cute."

"Can we get back together just so I can dump you again," you manage between gritted teeth as your face catches on fire.

"Haha. Nope! Imagine Karkat's face if he found out. He'd be so emo!"

You do, actually, imagine Karkat's face if he found out. You think he'd err closer to betrayed and then charge straight into furious, and then he'd stop talking to you.

Which, yeah, considering how touch-and-go his relationship with his palebro is at the moment, maybe it's not super cool to add to that. You and his new family are like the only two stable, comfortable things he's got right now, okay probably more his new dad than you but --

"... Why am I thinking seriously about it anyway, it was a joke."

Jade waggles her eyebrows at you and tries on a leer. What a goof.

You unwind, though your face is slow to return to normal levels of blood saturation.

"Fine, I give, it'll be a goddamn date."

Jade pumps her fist. "Woohoo!"

She bounces off her bed to Rose's, side-hugs you around the neck, and then she's bouncing up on her feet before you can even figure out how to hug back from that side.

And then she turns on her heel and _goes toward the door_ what why no. "Okay, it was nice talking to you but I'm late for my shift at the wheel! Good luck with the wooing, Byrd!"

"--No, hey, wait! What am I supposed to do for the date?!"

Thank _god_ , she pauses to look back. "Dunno, take him for a ride on one of the jet skis? Splashy water, holding onto your waist, all that good stuff."

You stare. "I'm one-handed and he's a control freak who knows jack shit about Earth technology."

A shrug. "Welp. It'd be a pretty cool date."

Yeah, for her, maybe; you bite your tongue just before you blurt that one out somehow.

"Sorry, that's all I've got." She whistles; Bec turns to heel. She waves over her shoulder, eyebrows still wagging at you like a giant dork. "I want details later! Bye!"

And then she really does leave you behind for real, just like that. Bam, alone on Rose's mess of a bed, your ass in abandoned knitting and books. You slump all over again. "Not fair putting me up to it and then wandering off before you tell me how!"

You hear her laughing all the way to the stairs, the witch.

\--

After that you finish touring the bedrooms and go back down to do your laundry. The pirate-crusher has been repaired and put back in place, but for some random and unrelated reason you don't use it. (You still haven't managed to ask Bro what happened to the guy. Not that the two things have any relation to each other.)

And after _that_ , it's lunch time. (That'll learn you to get up at ten or eleven you guess. But hey, you earned your vacation. Sorry not sorry. Anyway the food is pretty good.)

Jade winks at you throughout the meal. If she weren't on the other side of the table she'd probably elbow-nudge you in a suave and discreet manner, too, you bet. You glower back quietly, and try to be glad that she's also sitting a bit too far down to kick your ankle, she'd destroy it.

When you're done eating and it's time to clean up you go and get the little rolly table thing to bus the dirty plates back, even though you weren't even asked. It's kind of a bitch to aim that thing once full, it handles like a stubborn cow, but when you drag it it's okay, and only tries to roll on your heels three or four times.

And then of course your master plan to drag your feet around until everyone but Karkat has left ends up a great success, which is exactly as much of a disaster as it sounds like.

Because you still have no fucking idea how to ask the guy out.

TG: jade i still dont know what to do on that fucking date   
TG: i mean how can i just wander in and be like ok i have no idea what we should do so imma ask you out but if you want it to happen youre the one wholl have to figure it out   
TG: thats shitty!!   
TG: considering how much of a romantic he is hes gonna think this is the lamest shit ever and shoot me down   
TG: pew pew pew here lie several pieces of byrd sprite strider we never found the rest   
TG: my tombstone will be like   
TG: failure to launch   
TG: he made it to the runway but couldnt figure out which end to drive toward    
TG: clueless virgin levels hit critical!!

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] is idle! --

TG: curse you

"Do you mind not standing like a tool in the middle of my path?"

Welp.

You sidestep, allowing Karkat to trudge past you, dragging a pair of chairs behind him. He pushes them against the wall and goes back to the table.

"Whatcha doin?"

"What does it look like? Making space to run the debris sucking machine under the table." He makes a disgusted face at the floor. "Jesus, there are crumbs and shit everywhere, are we snoutbeasts now."

Shrugging, you start dragging a chair back. Might as well help. It'll hopefully make you look dependable and sexy. How can you say no to a dude who will haul chairs for you, seriously.

"I could wipe up the tabletop while you do the floor," you suggest.

"Yeah, sure, that works." Karkat still isn't really looking at you, busy reshuffling bits of furniture to their Vantas-optimal configuration. You're feeling a bit taken for granted here.

So you move chairs, and he moves chairs on the other side of the big dinner table, twice as fast and efficient, which makes a right racket and you'd have to raise your voice to be heard clearly and the kitchen is full of assholes loading the dishwasher which haha no fucking thanks.

"Okay, done!"

He disappears. Welp. You twirl your single thumb; it looks hella silly. Experiment not to be attempted a second time.

He reappears!

He's pretty cute today. He's way into long sleeves usually, but today the faded t-shirt he's wearing is falling right off his collarbones and the too-large sleeves stop at his elbows. And his Bermuda shorts are pretty funny with the way they go down to his knees, and they're like these huge legs and then hey there little knees, it makes him look chicken-legged.

You don't think he's got anything else to wear that works for the weather, really. This is probably all John's stuff in the first place.

"Do I have some unmentionable stain on my clothes?" He peers down at himself. You clear your throat.

"Nah. Cute shorts."

"Fuck you."

"Sure, but be gentle, it's my first time."

He rolls his eyes at you and turns away. Bam, dismissed. Okay, this is bad, you're getting noped and you haven't even asked him out yet. Crap.

"Okay, uh, more seriously now. Karkat--"

 _FROOOOOSH_.

... Aaaand the vacuum is on. Blarghlarghbhhpht. You slump into a chair and watch him start swinging that thing around, vrr, vrrrr, all in the hips and back. Hello, butt of Karkat.

That thing is loud as hell. Fuck. Should you retreat and try again? Maybe even _after_ you've figured out what you even want to do during the date?

Seems kind of cowardly, but you don't know what else to do. You can't even chitchat like that. If he had iShades, that'd be --

Huh.

 _Huh_.

You start waving your hand, mouth opening and closing like you're talking. When Karkat notices and turns off his noise machine you keep doing a fish impression for another handful of seconds.

"What do you _want_ , you turdrider."

"Lemme see your crabtop pretty please."

Wow, suspicious glare. He's half the room away from you and it's a pretty long room, but yeah, you can feel it even across the distance.

"You can't say no, I said please first and would you discourage me like that, do you want me to be rude forevermore, so cruelly rebuffed--"

"Yeah, like hell I can't say no. Watch me." He turns the vacuum back on. Vrr, vrr.

Well, that trick seemed to bring you good results so far. You take off your shades and put them on top of your head, and then you attempt puppy eyes, complete with little sad pout.

If anyone walks in there is no way they won't realize you were flirting. Welp. Oh well.

" _What_. You can't be that lonely, the boat is crammed full of assholes and a good half of them would be delighted to have you in their face, interrupting their business."

"Maybe the only asshole I want in my face is yours."

You pause.

"Okay, let's pretend I didn't say that."

Karkat stares at you for a few seconds, eyebrows scrunched up and lip curled to unveil his little fangs in the beginning of a disgusted rictus -- and then he bursts out laughing instead.

You kind of want to kiss his face right now.

"I'll be generous this once." He bends back to his vacuum cleaner.

"Wait, hey! Crabtop, c'mon."

"You were supposed to clean up the table, you useless waste of ass-holding surfaces, why do you think I'll let you rummage through my shit instead?"

You sigh and get up from your chair, make a show of sweeping the cushion clean. "Ass-holding surface restored, sir. Crabtop?"

"You're standing in my way."

You attempt another puppy eyes attack. He glares at you for a second, and then looks away. Yess! Cannot sustain your hotness, check. You take a step closer, bat your eyelashes, lean in.

"Oh, fine!" He decaptchalogues it on the dinner table. "Stay the fuck out of my files."

Score! You walk past him, swiping your shades off your head, and put them on his nose. You already logged yourself out, so nice really. "You know how to use 'em? It's pretty intuitive, no worries."

"Hey, what the f-- oh."

You perch your ass on the table and cross your legs, so you won't be in the way of his vigorous war on bread crumbs and dust bunnies, and you glance up at him to crook him a quick smile.

... Shit, he looks super cute with your shades on his face, what is this sorcery. Does it do the same trick on your own face? You may have shot yourself in the foot removing this artefact of +10 hotness.

"Couldn't you have just _said_ it!" Karkat harrumphs, and turns away, all growly-embarrassed.

"Could have indeed." You turn on his crabtop, and then realize the flaw in your plan.

The keyboard is in Alternian, and so is everything written on the screen. Aw, hell. You find the Trollian icon easily enough, and it's not hard to figure out how to log him out, but after that you're stumped.

"Welp. I forgot my Rosetta stone in my other sylladex."

"What the fuck do you -- oh."

Is he laughing at you? No, worse, he's not, he's just _smirking_. Rolling his eyes, even. Him and his unfair gothy lips.

"You're ridiculous. Give me that." He leans a bit over your knee and turns the crabtop to face him, clicks a couple of things. "There. Can't do a thing for the keyboard though."

"S'okay, the letters are in the same place, right? I just won't look at my hands." You catch yourself grinning at him a bit. You press your lips together and duck your head.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] is online! --

Victory.

The vacuuming noise resumes. You don't care anymore, though.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

TG: so am i smart or am i smart   
CG: YOU'RE LESS SMART THAN I THOUGHT IF YOU IMAGINE I'LL LET YOU BACK OUT OF WIPING THE TABLETOP FOR ME.   
CG: YOU DID OFFER ON YOUR OWN. CHOP CHOP, GET TO IT.   
TG: do you live to cockblock me or is it just a happy coincidence   
TG: uh wait wrong verb i meant the metaphorical meaning here

You can't hear him, but you see him snort in amusement at your awkward.

CG: I DO INDEED. IT MAKES MY LIFE BRIGHTER.   
TG: but tighter in the pants area rite

No response. You're not sure because of the shades on his face, but -- hehe, yeah, his head twitches along a bit when he rolls his eyes. This guy is so melodramatic, you swear.

TG: okay fine you slave driver   
TG: brb

You slip off the table and go off to the kitchen to borrow a sponge. Then you come back and start off with cleaning a corner of the table to move the crabtop onto.

TG: see im bein good   
CG: I'M SEEING THINGS ALRIGHT. I'M SEEING YOU SWEEPING A TINY CORNER OF THIS GIGANFUCKATIC TABLE AND DECLARING IT BREAK TIME.   
CG: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO, IT'S ALRIGHT. IT'S MY CHORE, I'LL MANAGE.   
TG: :(   
TG: aw man no im just dicking around for a bit but i said id help and i will

Wow. Good job, "have fun together while doing chores so the chores will go by faster" plan. You bet he just wants to be done and free to do all the shit he's planned for today, and you're mostly getting in his way. Sighing quietly under the noise, you go back to scrubbing down sauce stains and who knows what else from the table.

The table is annoyingly wide, and you can't brace _and_ wipe, so you just give in and flop on your stomach across its gross dampness to get to the other side. You're too lazy to walk around just yet. Anyway so long as the whole surface is done who cares if you didn't do it in mathematically identical increments, right.

The vacuum machine seems to be hella interested in this one spot behind you, it sounds like. You turn your head to look.

Karkat's head whips around real fast.

Huh.

Huuuh.

You keep wiping a little way to that side, then go back to the crabtop and start from there. Streeeeetching across the table, t-shirt riding up...

And then you wiggle your hips.

CG: SOMEONE REMIND ME WHY I FIND YOU ATTRACTIVE.   
CG: I HAVE A FEELING IT INVOLVES A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF HEAD TRAUMA.   
  
TG: aw bb 

You type, ilu 2, and then erase it; wrong message, waaaay too early, not something to make fun of when you're about to ask him out either. You type, which head, and then erase it because do you want to risk devolving into an explanation of your lower anatomy. Also, ouch, painful implications. You're panicking a bit. You've been typing for a while with nothing to show for it and you can bet he's still tracking you, even despite the renewed vigor he's attacking the carpet with.

TG: show me ur booboo and i will kiss it better

There. Flirty and silly; perfect.

CG: CAN YOU PLEASE NOT GIVE MY BULGE WHIPLASH WITH SUDDEN PALE SOLICITATIONS. 

Mother _fuck_.

CG: NOT THAT MY BULGE WAS ENGAGED IN THIS DISCUSSION AT ALL, THAT WAS A METAPHOR. I AM NOT SO HARD UP I WOULD PITCH A TENT OVER TWO SECONDS OF RIDICULOUS WRIGGLING, I FEEL I SHOULD SPECIFY.

Ahaha.

TG: ah HA   
CG: NO, FUCK YOU, WE ARE NOT GOING DOWN THAT ROAD.

You give your screen a somewhat goofy grin. Um, whoops. Too used to speaking over distances, the computer is giving you false expectations of privacy. It's okay, right, he's mostly turned away by now, he was walking past you, you're probably safe. Yeah.

TG: the road of me not fucking you?   
TG: ok sure its a true sacrifice for me like wow i had my heart so set on it but if you insist

Okay. Okay yes. This is a perfect segue. Go for it, Byrd. Go for it, gogogo.

TG: we could start down that other road at a sedate walk i guess   
TG: like hey lets stay with the true cliches of the genre 

You still don't have a date idea but who cares, you don't care, oh lord this is going to crash and burn, no, wait, he doesn't expect that much from you, he knows you're stupid about things like this. Yeah. It'll be okay. You hope. You pray.

You type into the window, suave as fuck, a master of seduction. like a date or smth. Your finger slides toward the enter key.

" _HEY BYRD WHAT ARE YOU DOING?_ "

You jerk so hard you dislodge the asshole who just draped herself across your back, and she falls to the floor on her ass with a thump; you hit your knee against the edge of the table hard enough that you know it'll bruise nice.

" _Roxy what the fuck!_ "

You didn't hear her coming of course, and this time it's not even because she's ninja. Argh. Did she see the screen?!

Karkat turns off the vacuum machine to stare at the two of you in mild despair. You lean over the keyboard again and backspace the hell out of that poor innocent sentence.

"Aw, I was just playin'. Are you nervous or something?" She gets up, rubbing at her ass and pouting. "You're like, hella twitchy."

You glare at her a little; she grins, sudden and bright, which wasn't the expected effect damn it.

"You're sooo mad cute without the shades, wow. Approved to the max! Whaddya say, Karkat? Should we steal them off him?"

You stare at him; he's watching the scene with the vacuum hose in hand and an unreadable expression on his face. No, it's okay, Karkat doesn't play along with pranks, he is prank-impaired--

"You say that like I intended to give them back in the first place."

Roxy snickers and waggles her eyebrows at him. Karkat tugs the shades down his nose a bit and gives her a smug quirk of his eyebrow, mouth a perfect straight line. That little asshole.

"If you're not helping could you just move on to the kitchen or something," you say while trying not to sound disgruntled. "Karkat keeps bitching me out when I get in his way, so having two people to work around is hardly gonna make him happier."

Roxy makes a sad face, shoulders slumping.

"Nah, contrary to him I know you can dodge out of the way when needed, do whatever you want."

You stare at Karkat. He stares back, eyebrows furrowed. He's still wearing your shades; you _think_ he's confused but you're not sure.

"What?"

"Nothing," you say, and turn back to wiping down the table. Bluh. How could he not figure out the being alone together thing?

Maybe he didn't feel like being alone with you.

Bluh.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] --

TT: Hello, Byrd. I won't disturb you for long, I am presently attempting to locate my pseudo-sister, and she is uncharacteristically and infuriatingly not online.   
TG: boom battleship sunk   
TT: Ah. Excellent.    
TG: ill be telling her to get her butt online then   
TG: do you need her for smth   
TT: No, quite the contrary actually. Could you inquire into what she plans on doing with her afternoon?

You pause for a minute to wipe some more tabletop, before Karkat scolds you, and drag the crabtop along to the other end of the table. Roxy is busying herself with a broom and the shit under some pieces of furniture.

TG: quite the contrary huh   
TG: whats that mean something p not nice do you not want to see her or something hmmmmmm   
TG: cmon shes your momdaughtersis you cant not want to see her thats unfamilyvaluable or smth   
TT: Would you perhaps be attempting to get me to take her off your hands?   
TG: i plead the fifth   
TT: Are you in your bedroom? If not, she would never impose on you should you retreat there. What's the issue?   
TG: theres no fucken issue with rox shes cool as a cucumber vacationing in shorts at the south pole its just a hella bad time is all   
TT: Were you perhaps busy?   
TG: i can smell the masturbation joke from here rosie   
TG: as it happens no no boner to be had   
TG: because rox is like prince of cockblock   
TG: LORD of cockblock   
TT: Ahaha.   
TT: That she is. Why do you think I'm attempting to put a lock on her near-future endeavors?   
TG: ohoooo   
TG: should i like im kanaya for gossipchumpage in a couple hours then   
TG: orrrr maybe not considering you being my sister and shit    
TG: goddamn cant i hear about some nice juicy lesbian makeouts without falling right back in that incesty pit    
TT: There's a briar patch joke to make in there...   
TG: dont you even dare to compare me to any land bound hopbeast i will peck your eyes out and they will be delicious   


You take another break for some more cleaning. Karkat has gone around the table and is now gaining on you; he quirks his eyebrow at you. You blink innocently and turn the screen so he doesn't risk seeing it.

TG: roxys busy helpin me and karkat clean up the dinner room but after that idk   
TT: Well! That is something I can truthfully say I didn't see coming. You and Karkat, truly?   
TT: That's an *extremely* interesting development. 

You swear. Thank fuck the vacuum is so noisy.

TG: did kanaya talk omg so betrayed   
TT: Byrd...   
TT: You just told me. I quote: "LORD of cockblock."   
TT: As you are at the moment alone with Karkat, or were before she walked in, it follows that either he is the focus of your secret lust, and you were indulging in quality ogling, or the two of you were, ahem, "busy."   
TT: Either way you were the one who told me in so many words that Roxy interrupted something definitely edging on the sexual.

Okay, time to bump your head against the table once or twice. At least there's no breadcrumb here to embed several layers of skin deep into your forehead, another point in favor of stellar housekeeping.

TG: urgh   
TG: ok fine weve been sneak macking a bit the great secret revealed DONT TELL ANYONE ELSE   
TG: apart from jade and terezi i mean   
TT: I'm almost mildly hurt that they got to know and I didn't.   
TG: no youre not   
TT: No I'm not. ;)   
TG: anyway we didnt tell either of them    
TG: jade teleported in at a real bad time    
TG: terezi can smell me and dave apart across a room    
TG: you think she didnt know why i suddenly smelled like eau de diminutively horny troll   
TG: okay and also i hit on karkat right in front of her face that one time but believe me it was an emergency but never mind that   
TG: and kanaya knew cause gamzee told her cause karkat told him on account of their pale boyfriendness but thats it   
TT: Well. You won't keep it contained forever, but at least those people are mostly trustworthy, so unless Gamzee sees fit to gossip it should stay under wraps a little while longer.   
TG: oh and i dont want to think about how but bro knows somehow    
TT: You're so fucked.   
TG: yeah and we havent even fucked that is unfair   
TG: ugh ok that was tmi sorry   
TT: Apologies, now? My.   
TG: im trying to be the sensitive twin    
TG: its working for me so far   
TT: Heh.   
TT: I rather think you're right, too.   
TG: bluh bluh whatever   
TG: anyway re karkat we werent doing anything   
TG: i was about to ask him out on a date but its maybe not so bad that rox interrupted cause i really have no idea what wed even DO for a date    
TG: like where do we go that we wont have half the boat traipsing by and gawking    
TG: neither of us is ready to be out about it   
TG: i just want to keep it for me a little while longer    
TG: does it make sense   
TT: It does.   
TG: its impossible to have a moments peace in here unless we like go to my room but yeah uh i dont think hes ready to behold the strider temple   
TT: And neither are you to show it.   
TG: you cant shame me im the emotional honesty twin and damn straight its too early to show him the mess all over my tiny floor   
TG: also shut up or ill tell roxy youre sad about something but wont say what and you need hella company   
TT: Heheh. Very well, I will refrain.   
TT: I've had some luck with the bar in the lounge, personally. If you move the folding screens toward the side opening to block the view from anyone passing by on the gallery outside, and sit on the floor, it makes for a nicely secluded corner.   
TT: You should bring your own beverages, mind, the adults keep track of the alcohol levels.   
TG: hrrm   
TG: will keep in mind thx

You're not sure it's a great idea. You don't think you'd be all that tempted by the liquid courage all around, it's just... there's pretty much nothing to do hidden in a secret corner but make out.

Making out is pretty cool too. You like making out. You just feel like it's not worth calling it a date, or else you and Karkat have been dating for like a week by now. Which, yeah, no.

Oh hey your other window is pinging you.

CG: WHO ARE YOU TALKING WITH?   
CG: BYRD?   
CG: OH. I SEE HOW IT IS, YOU BADGER ME TO HAVE A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION WHILE WE DO CHORES AND THEN YOU SPEND YOUR CHORE TIME ON TALKING TO SOMEONE ELSE. THANKS FOR NOTHING.   
TG: argh no rose wanted to skullfuck me and you know how she is when she has her claws in someone

You wipe a corner of table as you sneak him an apologetic look. Does he look a little miffed? You're a bit glad about that. It'd be a bit ouch for your ego if on top of not minding being interrupted by intruders he didn't mind when you mentally fuck off on him either.

TG: she just wanted to make sure rox wouldnt be going back to the bedroom too soon    
TG: she and kanaya want some uninterrupted bone time   
TG: for bulge rodeo purposes   
TG: taming the green beast cant be done in ten minutes you know   
CG: *WHY* DID YOU TELL ME THAT.    
CG: WHY DID YOU ASSUME IN YOUR LITTLE BRAIN THAT I NEEDED TO KNOW.   
TG: misery loves company   
TG: im misery youre company   
TG: no hom...   
CG: DO.   
CG: NOT.   
CG: **DARE.**   
TG: ...icide necessary    
CG: SIGH.   
TG: you realize i can see you snortlaughing right   
CG: YOU REALIZE I CAN SEE YOU FLUTTERING YOUR EYELASHES AT YOUR SCREEN? I'M THIRTY DEGREES TO THE LEFT, DORKIMUS STRIDER.   
CG: DAMN. WITH ALL I OWE KANAYA I SUPPOSE I'LL HAVE TO CONTRIVE A WAY TO KEEP ROXY BUSY FOR ANOTHER COUPLE OF HOURS.   
CG: OH WELL, NOT EXACTLY A HORRIBLE CHORE, CONSIDERING I DID WANT TO GET TO KNOW THE ALPHA HUMAN SET AT SOME POINT AND SHE HARDLY SEEMS LIKE THE WORST OF THE LOT.   
CG: DIRK AND JAKE, NOW...

Awgh, why does he have to be so responsible and shit.

TG: eh if you can tolerate john you should be okay with jake   
TG: apparently hes a lot like john except more naive and less moody   
CG: DUMBER AND LESS INTERESTING, THEN?   
CG: CONSIDERING HOW MUCH JOHN PISSES ME OFF MERELY BY BREATHING SOME DAYS THAT IS NOT EXACTLY A SHINING ENDORSEMENT.    
TG: yeah but hotter if one will believe jane & rox   
CG: ... I'VE HEARD INDEPENDENT CONFIRMATION OF THE ALLEGATION FROM SOLLUX. I THINK WE CAN TAKE IT AS A COLD HARD FACT.   
TG: or as warm round bouncy fact   
CG: INDEED. IF HIS ASS IS NICE ENOUGH THAT A MISERABLY CRANKY ASSHOLE LIKE SOLLUX WILL TOLERATE HIM FOR THE EYE CANDY ALONE IT MUST BE PRETTY REMARKABLE.    
CG: NOW I'M A BIT CURIOUS.   
TG: so mean    
CG: ALWAYS. WHAT ABOUT, THIS TIME, SO I CAN REVEL IN MY CRUELTY PROPERLY?   
TG: what about my ass its totally better right

You see him snort again. He might even be smiling.

CG: WAS IT...?   
CG: IT'S BEEN SO LONG, I'VE FORGOTTEN. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO SHOW ME AGAIN.

Woohoo score. You check on Roxy real quick -- she's peering at some little knickknack like she's not sure which end to start dusting it from.

Okay. Time to suave it up.

You bend over the edge of the table, back arched in purest playboy bunny tradition, and pout at him over your shoulder. His lips are pinched in disapproval but they keep trying to turn up.

You hike a knee up on the table, sensuously, and blow him a kiss.

CG: OH LITTLE GRUB JESUS, DON'T MAKE ME BURST OUT LAUGHING NOW, NOT EVEN THE DEBRIS SUCKING MACHINE'S INFERNAL RACKET WILL COVER IT UP.   
CG: IF YOU RUB ANY MORE OF YOUR CROTCH ON THE TABLE I AM MAKING YOU SIT AND EAT THERE FOREVER AFTER. NO AMOUNT OF DISINFECTANT WILL WASH THAT AWAY.   
TG: but is my butt worthy???

A long, heaving sigh.

CG: YES, BYRD, IT IS.   
CG: I SHALL GRACE IT WITH MY HOLY HAND AFUCKINGSAP.

Yoohoo. You dismount, and then you bootydance your way around the table, sponging the fuck out of any little smear or breadcrumb in your path.


	16. Chapter 16 - Still Day Eighteen

You come back a couple hours later, as promised by no one but yourself to yourself. Karkat and Roxy have migrated from the living room to the deck right off it, and John joined them at some point. You stand back behind the glass doors to watch for a minute, half-hidden by the dimness and the reflections. Roxy is laughing like a loon as John tells her a story, complete with very earnest nodding and hands waving around fit to bitchslap someone. Karkat leans against the railing a couple of steps away; he's smirking faintly, watching them, not really joining in.

Your best bro is totally hitting on your bio mom's ecto-clone, isn't he.

From the way she smiles, she doesn't mind one bit. You almost turn right the fuck around.

"Oh hey, Byrd!"

Crap, John saw you. Oh well. You push the door open and step out. You're not smiling, but you're also not _not_ smiling, which pretty much counts as a smile. "Hey bro."

He grins back, dimpling. "I was telling Roxy about the time I convinced you the ghost of Howie Mandel had pissed in your sealed apple juice."

You pinch your lips in a perfectly neutral, uncaring line, and then you wrap your hand around his neck and start pushing him over the railing, in a friendly-murderous way.

"Lawl," Roxy goes. "Okay, you two flirt on your own time, kay? I was getting entertained here."

"Eww," John goes with feeling, bent over backward against the railing.

"Yeah, mom, don't be gross," you drawl, and allow him to grab onto your wrist so you can help him get back up. "We're totes in diams, you keep your diagonal quadrant-flip fantasies away, okay."

"Did you _research_ or something?" Karkat interjects, dry and maybe slightly amused.

... You totally did not spend the last two hours idly rereading group logs for hints about Karkat's views on romance and dating and stuff at all.

You totally didn't come out only slightly less confused about quadrants, either.

Flush is still the one where you get to make out nicely, which is enough to get by on.

"Um. Of course not. Haha quadrants. Why."

"You sure? Because that sounded slightly less ignorant than your usual."

You grunt vaguely like you couldn't care less. "I'm a fount of mystical knowledge and wild-ass guesses. Anyway, what were you guys talking about that wasn't my humoring John's substandard trolling?"

"We talked of nothing else for the whole hour," John replies with a wise nod, the turd. "But also..." A vaguely embarrassed shrug. "What we were doing, before the game. Did you know Roxy lived alone with carapaces and a crap-ton of cats on a platform city on the sea? That's pretty hardcore!"

"As Janey says, aw, shucks," Roxy replies, and chuckles that purring, vaguely throaty chuckle that pings as _oh yesss you big stallion flatter me more_ somehow. Oh dear horrorterrors. "It was pretty normal for me, hardly any badass shit at all! Well okay, except there at the end, I got badass as balls."

John makes an interested noise, turns so he can grab the railing with both hands and lean against it as he listens to her, mirroring her a bit. You edge closer to Karkat as she starts explaining about her drone-fighting maneuvers, a mixture of fronting and awkward _omg plz like me_ that's... Um, yeah, wow, never mind.

The second your body is blocking John's view of Karkat, Karkat rolls his eyes and makes a heart shape with his hands, a quick flick of his fingers at hip level. You pinch your lips and give a faint nod.

"So hey," you tell him, "if you wanna go see that thing now--"

It is totally subtle and not clumsy at all as excuses out of a situation go. Alas John interrupts immediately, leaning to look past Roxy's shoulder. "No hey -- uh -- we are bro-hanging out as bros, with bros. No going anywhere!"

... Okay, you kind of thought that even if he didn't notice it was deliberate, he wouldn't _mind_ getting to be alone with Roxy. He's acting pretty interested here. You arch an eyebrow at him. Pointedly.

He laughs back, loud and barking, but not in an amused way. "Haha! Be right back for more exciting Lalonde adventures. Davesprite, come with me."

You let him drag you along by the elbow, though you twitch a little at the use of your old... designation. Name. You don't _think_ he did it deliberately, but --

"--Oops, sorry," he whispers. He's dragged you behind a potted plant. Some kind of miniature palm tree. The trunk is wide as your wrist from the side and the fans of leaves at face height are pretty much a polite fiction. "But seriously now you guys _cannot leave me alone with her_ , Byrd, you cannot."

He looks ... maybe serious? Alarmed, but a bit more goofy-alarmed than deep-shit alarmed. You frown. "Thought you dig her style, bro."

"Yes, that's the thing, I pretty much do! She's cool and she's cute and she, uh, doesn't seem to mind?"

"...So what's the issue?"

John cringes, eyes shifting around awkwardly. "Remember the part where her older version is my probably soon-to-be step-mom?"

"Oh."

"In other words," John finds the need to add, "older-her is _boning my dad_."

"Yeah, I'd figured it out," you drawl. John makes a tortured face.

"That makes things weird, okay! What if she's just got, like. _An Egbert fetish_."

You purse your lips. You purse them really hard. Then you say "Well, throw her at Mr. Makara-Egbert and see if she bounces?"

You think getting punched in the shoulder was totally worth it.

John glowers. "You are so fired, Carmencita."

He's blushing, which is something you don't remember seeing much. Okay, the one time he fell down the stairs -- you'd warned him about no okay that is too old a meme now -- and left his boxers behind on some bit of ... you don't even remember what, a nail? and you and Jade and Nannasprite were looking up at the time. You think it was mostly Nanna's presence that made him blush, especially when she commented that she'd seen it once already, even if it was a split-second before being squished by a meteor and it had been much cuter and well-groomed at the time.

Come to think of it Nanna was probably the one who caused the incident in the first place. Wow, can't believe you only realized that now. Then again at the time you'd been a bit distracted. Jade cuddling up chestingly on one side and John's bare ass absconding on the other side, yeah, um. Yeah.

"Guyyys, what are you talking about!"

Roxy is frown-pouting at the both of you. You shrug. "John's trying to talk me into mmphpt."

You pull your head away from John's gross hand, narrow your eyes warningly, but he's already grinning at you with all teeth threateningly out. "It's top-secret boy stuff, Roxy!"

Dave pushes the door open at that moment, arches his eyebrows -- you think at you, not at what John just said, but he shuffles his way to the both of you anyways. "Ooh, secret boy stuff, sign me up. What's our password."

John groans, and drapes one arm around his neck and one around yours. "Tell you later."

Karkat is still standing there by the railing, chin resting on one hand, leaning on his elbow, watching the lot of you with amused distance. Enjoying the clusterfuck, huh? Jerk.

Cute jerk who you want to get alone at some point, though.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

TG: itd be too weird to date her huh  
EB: sigh.  
EB: i'm kind of pretty creeped out, to be honest.  
EB: she's cute! and she's funny.  
EB: and she's BANGING MY DAD?  
EB: well kinda. in a parallel universe.  
TG: in a parallel universe im dating the chick who got my two best friends killed so hey you know  
TG: shes p cool too  
TG: terezi i mean  
EB: this is more like if you were dating your bro's ex, i think.   
TG: jake?  
TG: i hear on the grapevine hes hot so hey 

John gives you the stink-eye in real life.

EB: ha ha ha. like touching the butt your bro touched wouldn't be weird at all.  
TG: hey your dad didnt touch roxys butt he touched ROMYS  
TG: theyre not actually the same person ok  
EB: argh, sorry! you're right.  
TG: also i kinda hope she washed said butt in the meantime

You're being obtuse entirely on purpose. It would feel weird to do stuff with someone Dirk or Bro had done it with first. Thankfully they're not into girls and it looks like you got to Karkat first... Not that you'd necessarily turn up your nose if -- ugh, okay, this is a topic you don't really want to think about.

Distraction time. "So. Davey-poo. Where were you, gone so far, abandoning your friends so callously. John needs his waifu, okay, that wasn't cool."

He side-glares at you a bit. You prop up your elbow on his shoulder, try not to smirk when he twitches like he wants to dodge in case you get cuddly again. Shit's gonna be hilarious.

"Even a godlike being needs to pee sometimes, okay?"

"The time it took you?" John replies, laughing. "More like number two. Or three or four even, whoa."

Karkat looks at Roxy, an eyebrow up. She shrugs. "I think they're talking about. Like. Bowel movements 'n crap."

"... Yeah, crap is the thing that we are indeed talking about," Dave goes, and John tries not to snicker.

You allow him to herd you back to the group for some more fine bullshitting and tall stories.

A few minutes later Rose and Kanaya emerge, all smug and relaxed. You arch your eyebrow at them. Rose smirks and fist-bumps you; Kanaya blushes green, but smiles. D'aw, they're cute.

It's not fair that they get to have a sex life and you don't. The height of unfairness. You wish them a lot of happiness and mutual orgasms but seriously now.

"What are we talking about?" Rose asks.

Roxy shakes her head sadly. "They are talking about _poop_ , Rosie, save yourself."

"Oh my. Coprophilia, really?" Rose gives the lot of you a pleased look. " _Fascinating_. Why, the implications--"

Talking in twin stereo is still twee and gross, so you let Dave field that one, with his bustling and his ... pretty obvious defensiveness, wow, what a tool, is this what you would have sounded like?

Karkat and Kanaya are glancing at each other and sighing like yeah this is the species we have yoked ourselves to for survival purposes, life is going to be soooo worth living, wow. You kinda wish you were on that side of the group huddle but shuffling over is gonna be kind of obvious right now.

"We were talking about fun stuff we did before the game!" John says, mostly to Kanaya. Figures; he already sort of knows what Rose used to do. "Got anything fun to share?"

Put on the spot, Kanaya hesitates. Everyone is looking at her, which probably doesn't help much. You make a face at her and she smiles back.

"I'm afraid my life was... well, I don't think it was boring, but you would have to like sewing and landscaping."

You can see John hesitating. "Um. Yeah, okay, no offense, that's pretty boring. Uh, for the rest of us I mean, I'm sure it's not--"

"Sorry I can't be entertaining. The most exciting thing that happened was undead beings getting into my garden and ruining my tomatoes, but pest control isn't--"

You and John exchange a look, and then he looks at Dave, and at Roxy. Roxy looks pretty excited.

"Um," she says, "d'you mean, like, rainbow drinkers, or like _zombies_?"

Rose is laughing into her hand. The jerk.

"--Oh. I guess that was confusing. I'm sorry. I think it would be zombies?"

"Oh well! In that case!" John shouts. "Yes that is totally boring and you should not tell us anything about being a zombie hunter! At all! Ever!" His hands are in the air and he looks half exasperated and half excited.

Kanaya looks mostly unsure and wary, like she's wondering if John is going to need papping. S'okay, you've got that shit on lockdown. You bump your shoulder into him. "Don't yell at a lady or I'm telling Dadbert on you. Kanaya, what he means is please dear god tell us all about hunting zombies because that is badass."

She tells you all everything about hunting real-life actual zombies.

She manages to make it sound dull as dishwater. The topic is fun enough on its own to keep the questions coming for a while, though.

It's nice and it's fun and you can see how John tries to engage everyone, but always falls back to Roxy, stealing little glances at her, ending up talking to her alone.

He's got it so bad, Jesus.

TG: so not that youre gonna ask her out on a date  
TG: but hypothetically if you asked her out on a date what would the date be like  
EB: I DON'T KNOW!!!  
EB: super awesome, probably. uuughghghhh this is not helping!!!  
TG: :'( </>  
EB: oh, shut up, featherface.  
TG: thats mr featherface to you toothface

You feel kinda bad that you were sort of indirectly fishing for ideas for yourself.

At the same time, okay, it's a bit weird but apparently Roxy and Romy have a type, is all, and if your bro would have fun dating her then why not try it? They don't have to, like, get married or anything...

TG: ... huh  
TG: i guess if your dad and romy ended up getting married she *would* be kind of like your sister huh  
EB: THAT WAS MY POINT FROM THE START OH MY GOD DAVE SPRITE WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW????!!  
TG: dude im the guy who hit on his actual genetic sister  
TG: ok i didnt know at the time but i hella did hit on rose and flirt like crazy  
TG: and shes like my actual sister not my legally sort of sister because the separate and unconnected sort of parents just happened to also want to bone  
EB: ... yeah, that was gross.  
EB: but i *do* know.  
TG: you know what  
TG: have fun with your blue balls and your longing from afar and flogging yourself with sexy sexy guilt

John glowers at you in real life and pushes his nerd glasses up into his hair pointedly, all 'hah! Can't read you anymore.' "Yeah, I'll do that." Brat.

Karkat plucks them off his head, muttering. "You'll drop them overboard, you king of dunces." John allows it with a snort like a put-upon bull.

"Whatchu guys talking about now?" Dave asks, nudging in between John and you in a totally subtle and friendly way.

You lift your shades off your nose so he can see your eyes, because damn but he makes it easy. "Incest. You wanna cuddle?"

Dave shoves at you, but a bit awkward, like he doesn't want to touch your maimed side's shoulder. Dude, the missing area starts like at least two inches lower than that, and anyway it's not like the scar tissue is still all that sensitive. You shoulder-check him right back, to demonstrate.

Karkat pauses in the middle of stuffing John's glasses in his pocket to roll his eyes at you. Ouch. Pff. As Roxy teases John you signal him with a discreet tap to your own shades to put them on, which he does with a grimace like he just wants to check out how blind John is exactly.

TG: its not my fault he thinks my lopsidedness might be contagious  
TG: instead of thinking of it like im the venus of motherfucking milo only a dude and not made of stone  
TG: i mean who the fuck would remember the venus of milo if she had all her bits still attached huh  
TG: shed just be some stone broad shaking her bare rock titties like a million other toga party chicks  
TG: wow did they know how to have fun in those days  
CG: ONCE AGAIN I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE BLATHERING ON ABOUT, YOU REALIZE.  
CG: NOT THAT THIS IS A BIG CHANGE FROM ANY OTHER CONVERSATION WITH YOU STRIDERS, I GUESS.  
TG: youre no fun  
TG: shes some olden statue thats missing like her arms and stuff and is super well known somehow   
CG: THANK HEAVENS! ANOTHER DRIBBLE OF USELESS HUMAN POP CULTURE. I AM SAVED FROM A LIFE OF BLISSFUL IGNORANCE BY THIS POINTLESS CRUMB OF INFORMATION.  
TG: pff  
CG: I AM SURE WHEN THE LEGISLACERATORS COME FOR ME AND MINE I CAN TURN THEM AT THE GATE BY PROVING THAT MY SKIN MIGHT BE GRAY AND THE YELLOW OF MY EYES DEMONSTRABLY NOT WHITE BUT NO ONE CAN POSSIBLY GATHER SO MANY CRUSTY DREGS OF ACTUAL CULTURE WHO IS NOT, IN FACT, A HUMAN.  
CG: EXECUTION CANCELED FOR CAUSE OF KNOWING THAT ROSEBUD WAS HIS FUCKING SLED.  
CG: DAVE ALREADY DID THE OBVIOUS HIS ROSEBUD FUCKED BY A SLED JOKE, BY THE WAY, NO NEED FOR A REPEAT.  
TG: thanks for warning me  
TG: echoing his jokes would be the height of uncool  
TG: did he make the slay'd by that which rose one tho  
CG: WHY ARE WE SUBTLY MEANDERING TOWARD ANAL SEX.  
CG: ...  
CG: I MEAN, *TALKING* ABOUT ANAL SEX.

Oh god. Oh dear lord. He's gone all pink. He turns a bit to hide his face, all _look I'm keeping watch so they don't steal our horizon here stfu_. His ears are pink, the bridge of his nose is pink, it's fucking _adorable_.

You glance down at the front of his pants and cannot see jack shit for cause of Roxy's butt being in the way. Welp.

TG: idk anal sex is a p nice topic  
TG: or any other kind of sex actually

_Especially with you_ , you want to type, but wouldn't that be too much when you didn't even ask him out? The way you've been making out, he would _know_ that wasn't a joke. Shit, he's come into actual contact with your hard-on before, he knows he pings your fuckability meter. You don't want him to... Argh. Of course the attraction is more sexual than personal right now, you barely know him but you have working eyes and a working hand to help you appreciate his butt topography, but.

Like what if he gets angry and then later when you find your spine and ask him out he says no.

Urgh, _feelings_. You don't really want to hurt his. It's so much easier to be gross and careless when everyone knows it's just your usual meaningless word vomit.

CG: BUT MAYBE NOT ONE FOR *HERE*!  
TG: but ok maybe not for right now  
TG: haha yeah  
TG: k topic put back on waiting list

The conversation has been flowing fine without you, which is lucky in that no one's been nosy about where your head was, but unlucky in that you've got no clue what they're talking about now. You didn't check out all that long, but it was apparently enough for three swerves and seven topic revolutions.

"Hey guys!"

Oh hey, it's Jade. That traitor. Jane is with her, following at a more leisurely pace as Jade bursts out of the corridor with her dog at her side.

"Anyone want to swim for a bit?" she asks, beaming. "I asked uncle Paul and Jane's dad and they said we were making good time and if we wanted we could stop the ship for a couple of hours and put up a net and swim in the sea!"

Roxy is all for it, and so is John (pff, what a coincidence.) Kanaya looks vaguely intrigued at the thought but more at Rose's mention of swimsuits, and you suppose Dave will follow. Jane is already in her swimsuit, with some kind of beach shawl thingy wrapped around her hips like a dress. Hubba hubba.

You don't know if Karkat is going to want to swim. He kind of sucks at it, but then again he might want to practice...

"Yeah, I'mma beg off," you say.

Jade gives you a disappointed look. "Aw, but you like swimming, don't you?"

Rose rests a hand on her forearm and you get to see womanly telepathy in action; their eyes meet and Jade goes "--Oh. Right."

You're not even entirely sure if they're thinking of the same thing, like, is Jade remembering that she gave you a mission at noon and might perhaps be cockblocking it, instead of the recent ~trauma Rose is probably thinking about instead?

"But it'll be fun!" John protests. "How can you go traveling on the sea and not go swimming at all?"

You want to remind him that you went swimming the other day already. Like, on two separate days, actually -- once with Karkat and Kanaya when the cops were chasing you, and once with the pirate you stabbed in the thigh. That'd change the mood a bit, though. You don't want them to think you're now triggered by open water. It just doesn't appeal right now.

You just... shrug. "Nah, I'm a bit tired. Go spend time with your wife."

Dave gives you a bit of a weird look, but hey, you guys did agree that he could have John today. He shrugs and wraps an arm around John's neck. "Sure thing. Hey, hubby."

You hang out a bit longer, but by then people are already breaking into smaller groups and disappearing to go get changed. You wave and go around to the front by the gallery, because no one else is going that way.

You don't want to return to your bedroom in dishonor, cool as it is to have a private bedroom when almost no one else does, so you go up instead.

Looking for ideas, really. You go around and through each level, peeking through unlocked doors -- you find a lot of linen closets -- then up; you meet one of the dads, and you cross paths with Dirk who is making his way down and only acknowledges you with a stealth nod. The pilots' room has Romy in it; you wave but don't linger.

(She and Roxy are kind of a lot like each other, yeah. You suppose John's problem is a bit closer to if Terezi broke up with Dave and then fell for you. Would she like you for you or for how Dave-like you are? Urgh. Then again it doesn't jive exactly either, Terezi has always known there were two of you and you didn't grow up in totally different places and times either.)

(Also Dave isn't your dad. And John isn't _his_ dad. Okay, so it's not that similar after all.)

You get to the top deck eventually. It's empty, all gorgeous wooden floors and deck chairs under the sun, calling your name, and the Jacuzzi...

You dip a hand in, and it's deliciously cool. Wow. Okay, _now_ you want to soak.

It'd be a pretty good place for a date, so long as it stayed empty.... which, okay, might be a problem. You could lounge with a laptop to watch movies and everything if you got tired of waddling.

You go to the railing and lean on it on your elbow, watching the sea, and sigh into the breeze. Such a stupidly pretty view.

"What's on your mind, my fine-assed featherbeast fucker."

 _Jesus-Mary-Satan_.

Gamzee is on top of the awning, just by the radio tower, sitting with his knees up in his ratty t-shirt and long pants. Just... watching you, casual, a bit uncaring.

You unfold from your fighting stance and put your sword back in your sylladex and pretend he didn't startle you into shrieking even a little bit.

"Yeah, that is what I am, I fuck birds, that's it exactly. Like the philosopher Kesha said, you are what you put your dick into. Yep."

Why is he talking to you? You thought he was the type to keep to himself. Also, you're pretty sure he doesn't like you much.

He laughs, not loud or anything but almost rusty. He's watching the clouds. "That is some straight-up wisdom for the ages."

... Okay, you have very little idea what to do with casual-conversation-is-a-go Gamzee.

"She also has some pretty good beats. Um. Aren't you hot in that getup. I mean the t-shirt is okay, but those pants. You've got to be baking alive."

"Shit, bro, my blood runs as cold as it down and gets without sprouting those motherfucking brineguzzling chest flaps." He looks down at you, grins, and just like that the mood changes, not in a good way. "So when is a motherfucker to expect you be sprouting some horns, then?"

It takes you a second.

You are what you fuck, and Karkat is a troll.

"Are you and Karkat even still a thing, that you get to ask that kind of question?"

Your guts slam into a knot, try to crawl up your chest cavity; a jolt runs up your spine, clenches all your muscles for you, gotta run, oh fuck, oh fuck --

He's messing with you, teeth bared -- that _fucker_.

You uncaptchalogue a bottle of apple juice at his head. He swats it all claws out, splutters when it splashes him, and you can breathe again. There's still something crawling up your back, a spider, a _dozen_ spiders --

"I can't have this fucking conversation with you if you're not, okay?!"

He leans in to stare down at you, eyes narrow, suspicious. "What kind of conversation do I want to be having with an unfresh motherfucker like you?"

You lift your chin and pretend to be Bro, though you're only Byrd and right now Byrd hella wants to pee his pants. "Answer me first."

"... Of fucking course we still in diams, now what kind of truck you be havin' with it?"

... Well. That's good. ... Is it? What if he gets to veto you or something? Shit, you didn't even think of that. Is that how quadrants work? You were kind of planning on ignoring Karkat's other boyfriend entirely, but what if it doesn't work like that?

"Because I've been trying to figure out what kind of date to ask him out on all day, is what!" you reply, exasperated and half-sick with his terror bullshit.

Which disappears in a flash, leaving you with mild queasiness and a buzzing, dizzy brain. Now he's boggling, leaning over the edge of the awning to peer down at you better, horns tilted quizzically.

"Like a date-date, or like a pailing date?"

Yeah, you blush. Fuck. "Hey, I don't put out so easily, okay? Haven't even got any flowers from him, I'm not that cheap." A short sigh. "Date-date, and you can shut your trap."

A suspicious stare. "... Flush?"

"The kind of date-date where we eventually meander toward putting our hands down each other's pants and then maybe like eventually other body parts! Jesus, why do you even think I've got any interest in his diamond quadrant, you got schooled on that once already!"

You think he twitches a little at that. Yeah, well, good. You weren't the one who accused his boyfriend of cheating and almost got murdercrazy on a couple of innocent bystanders.

"Well, now that is one fine surprise," he says, still giving you the side-eye. "That you be wanting to date him, after being all for weeks with the naw, bro, I'm fine laying my fronds on you outside of all quadrants entirely. Like you think he ain't worth one--"

"Oh, fuck you!" you -- yeah, it was a yell. Your face is so red it feels like heatstroke. Maybe it's the sun. Yeah fucking right. "Just because trolls are desperate to hook up doesn't mean humans are, okay?! That was a perfectly normal speed and shut the fuck up!"

A pause. You're breathing a bit hard. He's tilting his head.

"Also it wasn't _weeks_. It was a week and a half, tops. That is hella fucking short, okay?"

"... I don't get my understanding on how you star chimps ain't all extinct yet."

He has gone back to sounding oddly mellow. You watch him for a second or five, suspicious, and then gingerly go back to leaning against the railing.

"We're not extinct because if a guy and a girl frick even once she might well come up preggers. See? If we rush it we end up with tons of girls alone with their baby wondering how the fuck they're gonna manage both raising it and working enough to give it a roof, while the deadbeat dad wanders off to smell other flowers. Me taking my time with Karkat means I don't want one of us getting dumped at the altar while seven months pregnant, which is a very responsible and noble-minded thing, _okay_."

"... I got no understanding of that whole shit either, my feathery fucker."

You groan and slump against the railing, head hanging. Yeah, maybe better if he doesn't. Was that some Olympic-level brainless babble or what.

"But the long and the short of it is, you want to get your flush on with him now."

Augh! " _Yes. Fuck_."

"Like with the funtime activities that ain't even be a little pants related."

You grab a handful of your own hair and pull. "Yes! Why not. That's what dating is for, to get to know each other better! Argh."

"... Then why you asking me, motherfucker. I ain't the one as want you on my bulge."

If you knew where the bottle of apple juice got to, you'd pick it up and throw it again. You've got more stocked but like fuck are you sacrificing another one. " _I am not asking you if I can date him, I don't give a fuck if you say no, it's not any of your fucking business who he dates._ "

"So what you be flapping your gums at me for?"

... Gnrghghnauuughgh.

"I wanted to ask. For suggestions. Like. _What to do on a date._ On this _fucking_ boat. I've been trying to figure it out all fucking day and there's borderline nowhere to go to be alone unless we hide in a closet but _closets are not for dating, closets are for hooking up_."

A pause. You hang your head some more, look down the ship's side. Fascinating. Your face is surface-of-the-sun hot.

"... Also if you maybe had some suggestions about stuff he'd like or something Jesus I am the lamest turd and can fall no further. Urgh."

"You might want to start by asking me personally?" Karkat says from behind you.

... Yeah so, taking a swan dive from up here, that should be doable, right? You won't hit the railing on the first level or get dragged under the ship or knocked out by the impact with the water, yeah? Okay let's try it.

"Yo, my main motherfucker," Gamzee says from the roof. He doesn't sound surprised at all, of course.

"Gamzee," Karkat returns, relaxed enough from his usual aggression that it's almost soft. "Hey."

Behind you, he is probably busy staring a perplexed, embarrassed-for-you hole in the back of your bowed head. You can feel the weight of his stare.

You are not turning around. You sink into a crouch, your hand still gripping the railing, and beat your head against the metal sheeting. " _Why are you even here_ ," you whine.

Footsteps; he's coming to you. You can't move. You can't even look.

So when your shades disappear from your face, you're a bit surprised. You open your eyes, squinting against the sunlight, to watch Karkat put them on his nose.

His legs aren't so scrawny and cute from here. They're nicked with old, white scars, and pretty muscled -- not bulky, but defined. You think vaguely of getting up, but then you'd be _way_ too close to him and... you don't know.

At least he's blocking Gamzee's line of sight. That's something. You guess.

He hands back your shades and a Pesterchum window is open -- oh. Oh, he logged himself in.

CG: BUT ANYWAY, YEAH. IF YOU WANT TO SWIM, I'M GAME.  
CG: BUT I'LL BE FINE NOT GOING, TOO.

\-- terminallyCapricious [TC] is idle --

CG: GAMZEE! DID YOU DOZE OFF ON ME AGAIN??  
CG: GAMZEE. GAMZEE MAKARA.  
CG: HEY, TURDLICK!!  
TC: bro, roof. now. :o)  
CG: ...  
CG: NOW WOULD BE AN AWESOME TIME TO TELL ME YOU DIDN'T KILL ANYONE ELSE.  
CG: HOLY SHIT SAY YOU DIDN'T KILL ANYONE  
TC: hahahahahaha  
TC: nah, bro <>  
TC: a tiny horned motherfucker just really needs to be moving his gams like they all thinking they is lightning and be getting your tush up here. :o)  
CG: ON MY WAY. *NO MURDER.*

"Oh. Huh."

You look up at him over your shades. He has turned to put his back to the railing, so he can watch the both of you presumably. You politely log yourself out of his account.

He's looking down at you. You're not too sure how to handle that.

"Gamzee," he says, still looking at you. "Dad's down by the sea deck, if you still want to go. I'll join you there, okay?"

"I'm good getting my wait on for you," Gamzee says, lazy, and you see lights flashing as he captchalogues the laptop he had on the roof where you couldn't see it. He flips onto his belly, head on his hand. Karkat turns his head to stare at him.

You get up, because it's starting to feel hella silly to crouch there at his feet.

"Get your skinny ass moving already," Karkat says tiredly. "Go prevent Dave from bulgeblocking John and Roxy or something. Do your duty as a human brother. Alternately, go drown Terezi a couple of times, I don't know."

Gamzee laughs a gravelly laugh and rolls off the roof and onto the deck. "Naw, bitch swims better 'n me. Be maybe gonna spend some quality pitch time, though, so you might as well see how featherybro's mating parts handle."

You splutter. He barely looks at you.

"... Yeah, that is totally what I'm going to do in full daylight in a public area of the ship I can't lock. _I don't care if you do it don't tell me--_ "

Gamzee chortles. Karkat glares. You're still spluttering a bit.

He ruffles Karkat's hair in passing, and then he mercifully fucks off.

You fold yourself over the railing and observe the majesty of the ocean. Wow, are those actual waves? Unreal.

A few centuries pass. Okay, maybe thirty seconds.

"I can't believe you asked _Gamzee_ ," Karkat says, but there's a smile in his voice.

"Someone kill me already," you whine, though you make it a little playful. You're still embarrassed to death, but -- he's not angry. At least he's not angry.

"Hmm... Nah." A snort. "But how did you even expect anything useable from him?"

" _I was desperate, okay_."

Karkat pats your shoulder. He is laughing silently, the _giant turd_.

Then he leans against your shoulder a bit and bam, tingles under your ribs. They're crowding out your lungs, must be why.

"I guess," you say, trying to sound cool while your ears are still incandescent red, "at least I don't have to torture myself over how I'm gonna ask you anymore."

Karkat turns around so he's facing the sea, too, and props his elbow on your shoulder, casually brolicious even though he usually never is.

You can see his fingers dangling at the edge of your vision. They're shaking a little.

"Actually," he says meaningfully, and stops there.

You wait for a second, and then you groan. "... You're gonna make me ask it."

Karkat clears his throat, looks up at the sky, away from you. He's smiling.

Yeah, okay, the worst already happened anyways and you didn't die or get shot down even a little bit.

It looks like you're not going to be.

You try on a smile. "Wanna go on a date with me?"

Karkat says, "Oh yeah, sure, why not," but his voice goes strangled for a bit and it doesn't come out half as casual as he aimed for. He throws you a side grin, ducks his head to hide. He's still trying not to laugh, that evil bitch. "I wasn't doing anything that interesting anyway."

You shove him a little bit. A tiny little bit. Okay so it's more of huddling closer for a second. "Hey, come on, why do I have to be romantic but you can be a turd?"

"Because," he says philosophically, "you'll be a turd no matter what, Byrd."

Jerk. You try to smother your smile and fail. "Yeah, but so will you. I want a little effort here, c'mon."

"... Point." He turns to meet your eyes, and now he's serious. "Do you really?"

"Um?"

"Want ... romance. Gestures. Things."

Karkat waves his hand vaguely. You shrug. "I dunno. Never really did that -- Jade was kinda more 'hey honey we're going rappelling today!' The most romantic thing I did for her was -- uh." You pause. Shiiit. "Is it ok to tell you about her, like, do you mind or anything? I mean that's the sum of my dating experience right there--"

Karkat elbows you in the ribs, but kind of gently. He sighs, rolling his eyes at you, and you relax a little to see that he didn't take it badly. "No, it's fine. I still can't believe she was into you--"

You shove him, a bit harder than last time. You're grinning. "Hey!"

He flashes you a smirk. "Hey, it's true, and you know it, you colossal loser. But yeah, that's a topic that perhaps should be broached later."

Yep, you don't mind shelving references to your sadly stunted love life so far, this is kind of hella not the right time for it. "Sure thing. So... I have no idea if I'd like romantic things, like, at all."

"Guess we can try and find out," Karkat says, all careful, tentative under that really bad blasé facade.

Pff. "Sure, why not," you say, bland as beige wallpaper in a dentist's waiting room. He pinches your hip and you jump.

Silence. Um. Okay, what now.

"... So... date now?" You remember Gamzee suggesting the two of you use this time to frick and flush a little. Yeah, uh, no. The mood is _totally_ wrong for that. "I mean if you need time to get your heart ready to handle it that's fine, it's just that alone time is gonna be in short supply and--"

"Now is fine, I guess -- what did you have planned?"

Haha planned. Haha.

You look around for ideas. Okay, cold Jacuzzi, lounge chairs, and... you did captchalogue a soda bottle the other day and other odds and ends...

... Huh. Okay, why do you have _that_.

You slowly pull away from the bar, and when his hand falls off your back (awkward,) you take it (just as awkward, but determined.) "So hey, Karkat, do you have things in your sylladex, like, anything weird and random that you don't even know why the fuck it's taking up a card?"

(Holding hands is weird as fuck. Plus it disturbs you a bit that you don't have another one free in case you need it. What if you tripped? Needed to ward off a wooden sword coming at your head? It's nice and all, but... Also, yours is a bit sweaty. Goddamn, you feel _twelve_.)

"Uh, yeah, sure, I have a few, why? Is that your idea of get-to-know-you topics or...?"

You pout-glare a bit, and then you sit on one of the lounge chairs, and you produce your huge-ass candelabra.

Karkat stares for so long you end up having to tug on his hand to get him to sit down, which he does, right beside you. He laughs a little, more incredulous than anything.

You get out matches, and light up the candles one by one.

"... Oh my paradox frog, Byrd, you dork emperor, it's _still afternoon_. The sky is bitchqueen cerulean bright, and the _sun_ \--"

Wise nod. "Yeah, but you're still seduced."

"... Yeah, I'm still seduced," he admits, pained, and then he starts laughing his ass off.

You like it when he laughs. You got the impression from the way everyone talks about him that he, like, _never_ does, or something stupid like that, that he's a ball of anger issues and too much seriousness; it feels a bit special every time you manage it. His eyes crinkle and he gets all wheezy, trying to keep it quiet, and all his pointy little teeth show, which is weird and creepy but somehow also cute.

He reaches for your shades and takes them off, and _then_ pauses like he's thinking shit should I have asked, and you snort and quirk a smile at him.

He rolls his eyes right back, and then leans in and kisses you.

Out of all the kisses you've had it's nowhere near the steamiest. It's... sweet? Cute. Shallow, soft, and the angle is wrong to deepen it, to press your bodies against each other, and it's nice and at the same time making you more nervous, more uneasy than hands on your ass would have.

You understand lust, by now. You understand lusting for him. What are you _doing_ , deciding to throw feelings into the cake mix? You don't even know if they'll rise right, what if your thing falls flat like a bad soufflé?

"... Okay, I feel like I'm six sweeps old again and trying to figure out the least lame handholding position."

Pff. "Bit lacking in hormones and sweaty desperation?"

You like it when his red and yellow eyes go hooded, veiled with thick eyelashes, and his goth lips twist all faint in dry amusement. Sexy. "You talk as if my grubby mitts weren't the slipperiest, drippiest shit."

You have no understanding of this at all. You were born at fifteen and skipped that part entirely. "Yeah, we should totally inject some adult into this situation." You see him hesitate, and you stammer smoothly all over yourself to rectify. "I mean not _naked_ adulting, but those assbutts made me want to swim earlier, only hella not in the sea, and there's this pool thing right here--"

"Bubble-blowing soaking trap?"

"...Let's go with that and I wanted to know if you'd go in it with me circle yes or no."

Karkat blinks at you, and you wonder if you should actually write him the note. Maybe he doesn't know what you're referencing at all--

"I'm gonna guess this is your attempt to communicate your desire for shirtlessness and water fights."

You nod, mouth closed.

A lot of fits and starts and blushing and getting tangled in your shirts and the two of you are in the deliciously cool water in your underwear (the water is opaque with bubbles now; you are so not thinking about how transparent it might get when you get out, oh man), leaning sideways against the ledge, face to face, and gazing at the magnificence of the candelabra.

"It'd be way better at night," you say with a sigh, and he snorts at you and slips a knee between yours.

You spend the next hour making out -- nothing as dangerous as that time against the wall, but hands wander damn near asses and legs tangle pretty high up -- and having random bouts of conversation in between kissing.

("So how is it, having a dad?"

He's straddling your lap, and he stops your exploration of his neck to go all frowny and intense. "Can I ask you for a reality check? No, can I _trust_ you for a reality check? Goodnight kisses are absolutely out of bounds, right? Because I'm almost ninety-percent sure John was fucking with me, but."

"Hahaha oh my god." You grin. What a perfect setup. But it'd be a shame if that butt left your lap, so. "I guess your dad _could_ want to catch up on the first ten years of your life, but you're still kind of too old for it by now."

"Oh thank fuck. That felt really too creepy.")

A last bout of wrestling ends with you pulled back, half-floating, onto his lap -- his arm barring your chest, his lips on the back of your neck (you totally didn't lose on purpose. ... You, um, actually really didn't, but you like the end result.) It's all nice and warm and maybe a bit tight in your underwear area -- colors not fully hoisted, stuck at a lazy half-mast but if he keeps going you might see your way to three fourths up.

And then he pauses.

"... Are you supposed to be turning red like that? I mean, I'm not entirely sure where it's normal for you to be turning weird colors with your pasty alien paper skin but--"

Oh hell. The water is cool enough that you didn't notice. "Awgh. Sunburn. I totally forgot. Mom Lalonde will eat me alive." You sit up between his knees and touch your own shoulder; yeah, you can feel it now, skin a bit tight, banked heat underneath. "I uh, don't suppose you want to help me put on some sunscreen. I mean it's a bit late for it but--"

Karkat leans in to brush his lips against your shoulder blade, against the scar of your left wing, and you swallow. "Mmh. Could do. If you'll do mine, I mean, not that I believe we trolls need it but if we're after avoiding lususial wrath here..."

He sneaks you a coy look over your shoulder, and you snort, grin back.

"What time is it?" he adds, distractedly, as you go through your sylladex for the tube of the stuff that you hid as far down as you could. His arms are around your waist and you can't help but enjoy his biceps, shit, those are usually well-hidden under his shirts but wow.

"Six twenty," you answer just as distractedly -- you don't remember the hash code for sunscreen off the top of your head...

"--Oh, fuck." His arms tighten on you, which is pretty nice, but the feeling behind it... You crane your neck to look at him. "I promised Dad I'd have the kitchen clean by the time he needs to cook, and now he'll be late for everyone's meal, oh hell, I am a failure who can't be trusted with--"

You elbow him in the ribs and frown sternly at him.

"--And you're a vile feathery singer-monster distracting me with your half-naked wiles," Karkat finishes with a put-upon frown.

Then he nips your neck. You wriggle backward between his thighs. "Did you just call me a siren, bro -- that's so grossly perfect, Jesus, I hate you a bit."

He shoves at you, groaning and laughing, and you allow yourself to stumble off him, smirking, though you're a bit disappointed.

"Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one, seeing as it's a matter of time until you subject me to your attempts at slam poetry and electronic sound massacre."

"How can you distrust my rad music, bro," you say, and caw sadly. He throws water in your face.

You waste another five minutes horsing around before he manages to drag himself out of the Jacuzzi. You don't follow him out, mostly because yep, his briefs sure got clingy in the back, and you still have that chubby to camouflage, though you're sure you have fooled around enough he has long since noticed it was there.

He puts on his shorts, drenches them immediately, and his shirt too. He rakes a hand through wet hair, shaking droplets all over the place. His horns are all shiny-wet.

"Okay, so I'll... go."

"Yeah, okay."

"Okay."

"Okay."

You're nodding like idiots at each other. So lame. The lamest. You kind of want to ask for a goodbye kiss. For a second date. For five more minutes. It was nice and you don't want it to be over yet.

"We are being ridiculous. I'll troll you tonight, and now, goodbye!"

He stalks toward the door, and then pauses, turns around, hesitant.

"... Matesprits?"

Oh. Yeah. Guess there's. There's that.

You guys are gonna have to talk out the quadrants/boyfriends thing someday. Right now, you don't wanna. You swallow, and you nod. "Trial period, though?"

"I haven't forgotten you're a shy woodland creature who freezes in mortal terror at the advancing headlights of any relationship, Byrd," Karkat replies, rolling his eyes, but then he rakes his eyes down your body and the hickey he left on your chest, one inch over your nipple, and he smirks at you. "One day you'll realize that you _can_ break a matespritship even outside of a trial period and stop being so scaredy, but hey, must be my bulge talking because it's almost cute."

He walks out to you puffing yourself up with outrage, smirking and waving over his shoulder. The _jerk_.

The jerk with a hella nice ass, though.

Also nice shoulders, and a nice, secret smile, and Jesus but when his eyes go all heavy-lidded it's like a happy punch straight to your crotch.

Pff.

You let yourself fall back in slow motion in the water, floating with your belly up (no, your ship does not need a flag right now, you stop that, Not So Little Byrd), and then you smile a little because it might not have been spectacular, or scorching-hot, but yeah, it _was_ a date, and it was enjoyable, and you enjoyed it. He's prickly in fun ways and incisive and thoughtful about the oddest topics you didn't think needed dissecting, and he's got a smart mouth to match yours and... you still don't know him well enough to say for sure, but you know him a little better than you did.

You've got a ... you don't want to say a good feeling, not yet, too early, but it still feels...

Oh hey. That's "hopeful." The feeling you're having.

Not bad, huh.

\--

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] -- 

TG: ill trade you makeout stories if you wanna  
GA: In Exchange For What  
TG: for other makeout stories duh  
TG: with like other protagonists  
TG: other me shaped protagonists  
TG: (who are not dave just to be clear)  
GA: Oh Ho  
GA: That Was The Proper Revelatory Noise Was It  
TG: yeah it was youre in the clear  
GA: Karkat I Assume  
GA: As you Have Previously Expressed Interest Of A Concupiscent If Unquadranted Nature  
GA: Has The Unquadranted Question Been Settled  
TG: ayup :)  
GA: Is That A Pictographic Facial Mimic I See  
GA: I Feel This Calls For Another Oh Ho  
GA: Oh Ho  
GA: !!  
TG: youre seeing things maryam  
GA: Yes Indeed I Do And Some Even Happen To Actually Be Here How Funny  
TG: caught me :)  
GA: Tell Me Everything


	17. 17 - Days Twenty-One to Twenty-Three

It's funny that in your dreams you have two arms, and that's unremarkable, and the dreams are still horrible.

You trail gold blood and orange feathers and colorless code in your fall through Paradox Space, which doesn't have a bottom but you're aimed right for it. You're losing parts of you (body and mind) your code is faulty and no, that is not your purpose you will fail your purpose if you lack the code, why can't you shed the human instead --

Oh wait, you _are_! Okay, proceed (feathers like strings of memories recorded in zeroes and ones) but you still can't fulfill your purpose -- obsolete hero and broken code and you can't _fly_ , you need to fly, you need to find and trigger the code that respawns your wing you always knew there would be one but it never

You're falling and breaking and losing pieces of you and there's a shriek caught in your throat that won't come out and if only you can get it out everything will be okay again.

You have to, you can't but you have to, you _will_ \-- freefall, and you tear that scream free and push it out, and land on the carpet stump and hipbone first.

Ow.

Fuck.

The boat does a slow, ponderous roll under you, and wings you stopped having three weeks back try to tilt into it.

You're not flying. It doesn't matter if you can't angle yourself into the fall. Hell, even when you _were_ flying, it was sprite floating, which you could have done upside down and sideways; this is leftover crow bullshit.

You fumble along the edge of the mattress, grab the comforter, and drag it over yourself. Draping it over your head helps, and makes your throat go tight.

Something clatters off the bed. Probably your shades, or the handful of pencils you were dicking around with when you fell asleep. Mneh. They're not even shiny, who cares. It's dark and safe and nice under here; you're not looking.

One of the things that sucks about being human again is, you _could_ sleep and dream as a sprite, but there was always that "resume waking operations" toggle button.

"Byrd?" a girl says at the door, and knocks.

Takes you a second before you... "Jane?"

Awrgh, you didn't mean 'come in'. She cracks the door open and you sit up, trying to wrap the comforter around your body. It's cool this deep down the ship, halfway under the waterline and also you're shirtless and unpreened. You rake your hand through your messy hair, and then make a wild grab for the falling comforter.

"--Oh, you were asleep, I heard... Um. Why are you on the floor?"

"Yoga exercise," you lie blandly, and shuffle to get your legs back under you. "What's up?"

You can't really see her face too well; there's just a slice of light from the corridor along one of her cheeks and the tip of her nose. You can't even tell what she's looking at.

She clears her throat, and then throws out, "Have you seen a _certain_ piece of personal apparel in the laundry?"

Blink, blink. You sit on the edge of your bed, still awkwardly wrapped up. Your good shoulder is bared à la sexy morning-after drunkard who's afraid to flash a nipple. "Uh?"

And then the door is pushed wide open and Roxy barges right in. "Hi! Let's check out your contraband!" Grinning, she drops her ass on the other side of your bed; the mattress bounces under you. "Just kidding. They're sky blue and have little clouds on them!"

It occurs to you a bit late that they're talking about underwear.

Probably panties.

 _Ummmm_.

"I... don't remember seeing anything like that," you say, and look away from Jane's awkward, blushing face. "Might be they were in one of the flour bags you guys filled, but if that's the case I must have missed them. D'you check the dirty hamper?"

"They're not there," Roxy informs you as she peers around your room with interest. Not that there's anything all that fascinating in here. You barely even unpacked anything from your sylladex. "We checked inside the washing machines too, but one of them was out of place and blocking stuff--"

... Yeah, you. You should probably put that back in its spot at some point.

Or get someone with two good arms and upper body strength to do it for you.

Say, Bro.

You really should.

"You, you could captchalogue it to move it around, check underneath --"

"We did that," Jane informs you, "But it stands to reason that if it was moved and then put back, then laundry might have fallen out on the way, and there's no telling exactly where it was in the meantime."

Yeah, that. "It was just in the corridor," you say, voice cracking weird. "Corridor and back. We'd have seen them out there." You clear your throat, and get up, still holding onto the comforter. "I'll look."

Roxy gets up too, looking a little disappointed, but at least you don't have to actually _tell_ her that she should get out now.

She walks to the doorway, and then she pauses to wink at you.

"By the way... Nice hickeys! Drat, and here I was all set to set you up with Janey."

Jane splutters. You cough. Wow, that was unexpected. You tug the comforter a bit higher, but Karkat is bitey and your shoulder acquired a brand-new one yesterday that didn't feel so bad but when you sneak a look it's nice and dark against your pasty skin, visible even in the gloomy light that comes in past the girls. "Uh. Yeah? Sorry. I mean --"

Awgh, and Jane looks all embarrassed now. You might even dare a mortified.

"I would have been hella fine with it! I mean, you're totally hot, and I, uh. I really dig the no-nonsense thing, but. Yeah, someone else has dibs now."

Jane groans, waves a hand and pinches the bridge of her nose with the other one. "Oh good Lord. You don't have to feel you must justify yourself, I didn't _ask_ Roxy to -- I mean, not that you wouldn't be perfectly acceptable but I was _not_ looking for a date."

"Yeah but _I_ was!" Roxy says, a bit pouty now that her plan has failed. "It would do you tons of good to get in some well-deserved boy admiration. So who's the lucky girl-boy-human-troll-space doggy?"

"Oh, urgh," Jane says, making a face like she doesn't know if she should laugh or be grossed out.

"What, I wouldn't want to discriminate!"

You snort. "Find me a nice sexy raven and we'll talk, but in the meantime human-shaped only please."

They're still in the doorway, Roxy staring at you and Jane pretending not to stare at you but totally stealing glances.

"... Gamzee?" Roxy says, wagging her eyebrows, and you groan and sink back onto your bed. "Oh, is it Jade, are you back with--"

The next on the list are going to be the Dads, you can just _tell_ somehow. And then probably Kanaya. Yuuuuck.

Anyway the list of possibilities isn't that long, so.

" _Karkat_. It's Karkat." Today is going to be the fourth day you're officially dating an alien boy. It's still a little strange, but nice too. Not something you want to get into with the two of them even so. "I am macking on Karkat and it's been pretty nice so far now can we drop it."

"Oho! Pitch or flush?"

You peer up through your bangs, eyes narrowed against the light. "Do I fucking look like a horned asshole to you?"

Roxy grins. "Awww! That's mad cute."

"Yeah, so cute and still under wraps, so can you please not..."

"Not mention the evidence of forbidden carnal relations?" Jane says dryly. She's smirking a little bit. "When you could get into such trouble with the parental units?"

You get up, and drop the comforter, baring your skinny man-chest and the sword scar just under your ribs, and you advance toward the door like you really think any of the girls you know can be intimidated that way. "Hah! Bro already knows, you can't blackmail me."

"And he doesn't check your door at night? Hmm. Trusting."

... You are never asking Karkat to spend the night. Ever. " _Out_ , or I'll put your panties in with Dirk's brand new black jeans, I swear to God."

Chuckling, they leave. You close the door behind them firmly, and tell yourself you chased them off and they totally didn't win on points.

You hope they do keep it under wraps, though really at this point you're gonna need a chart to see who knows and who doesn't pretty soon. You don't want it to get to Mr. Egbert, you don't know how he'd react to finding one of his brand new alien sons exploring the cultural differences located in your pants.

Urgh. Nine AM. But you're well-awake by now, and your back still tingles wanting to flex limbs you don't have. Might as well get a move on.

\--

You check the laundry room, and the cupboards in case a cat made off with -- the missing article of clothing for their nest, and between and under the machines, and...

...Yeah, okay.

It'd be easier if Bro was in the machine room, but it's Romy's shift right now.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering gailyTerminating [GT] -- 

TG: ping  
GT: Ping.  
TG: asl  
GT: 31/M/this ship.  
TG: squints  
GT: Pilot's room.  
GT: Alone.  
TG: k  
GT: Bring me coffee, yeah?  
TG: how many pots  
GT: Eleventy.  
TG: can do

You climb up to the kitchen and putter around gathering pastries and glasses of orange juice for your breakfast, finding the biggest coffee mug there is. The coffee machine putters along with you, taking at the same time three centuries and not long enough to fill the mug.

You put everything on a tray and captchalogue the whole thing. (You tag it SCRUMPTIOUS FEAST.)

Then you climb up again. Goddamn are your calves going to be toned.

Bro is at the wheel, by which you mean in one of the two comfy padded seats, but he slid the seat back along its rail on the ground so he could ooze and throw a leg across his other knee. Also, there is no actual wheel, it's all sonar screens and toggles and shit. You feel cheated.

"Hey, Bro."

You're not sure where to put down your tray. You look around, but it's Important-Looking Button city around here and Less Important Toggles suburbs are still suburbs you don't want toggled. Also the only other chair is stuck in its own rails five feet away. Not optimal.

"Byrd?"

"No table," you say. "This is a really bad design, dude."

Bro gets up from his chair, and then sits down on the floor with a little grunt, crossing his legs like the two of you are going to play pattycake.

He pats the floor without a word. He doesn't even arch an eyebrow.

Fuck. How does he know.

You sit down and decaptchalogue your tray on the floor. The coffee mug barely wobbles. You pick up a croissant. It's fresh-made; goddamn, but those Crockberts are ridiculous.

Bro thieves one of your muffins to go with his coffee and the both of you eat and sip in silence for a while. You can even tell yourself this is just another normal not-yet-awake breakfast.

It'd be kind of nice if only your throat wasn't trying to knot up and prevent you from swallowing this delicious blueberry... thing.

"Okay." He puts down his mug, drained dry. Plays with the handle for a second, two.

Takes off his shades.

You stare at your orange juice. Why did you not take apple juice? Apple juice tastes so much better. Who cares that it's less traditional and less with the power of vitamin C.

"Byrd."

It's the only thing he's said so far apart from 'okay' and coffee-slurping noises.

"The guy," you say. "The pirate."

He makes a noise; he's listening. You still can't look up at him. He doesn't have his _shades_ on. You killed someone, then, didn't you?

"Did he die? Did -- he didn't. Walk off the boat. With the rest. He didn't."

A second of silence, two.

"He was alive when we got the washing machine off him," Bro says quietly. "Not in an awesome state -- collarbone and sternum broken, and that fucks with breathing. Trachea bruised, I don't know how bad or how far it'd swell."

Fuck.

"Did you dump him overboard?" you make yourself ask, and then you force a laugh. "I mean, I--"

"I'd only do that if the cops were closing in," he says, not smiling at all.

It's not even anything like a joke, or a dismissal, no, Byrd, you're being ridiculously dramatic, I'd _never_ do that. He'd do that, if the alternative was not covering for you.

Jesus, what did you _do_ to deserve this bastard.

Maybe he's your prize for saving the universe. You can buy that.

"Oh."

He shifts his weight a little, brings a knee up, wraps a hand loosely around it. "We found a couple of unconscious pirates on board later, Crocker and I. We got Bec to teleport them to the escape boat. And then some time later they were picked up by coastal police."

You nod. You remember Sollux telling you all that. "There were hospital admissions, but I--"

"Police never reported a dead guy," Bro tells you, analytical. "Could be he lived. Could be he died, and his buddies didn't know how much time they were going to spend in the sun with a corpse and dumped him overboard. At this point there's no way to know."

You rub your hand against your face, shades shoved up into your hair.

"Do you want me to check it out?" he asks, quieter, gentler. "Can't yet, but once we get you kids to the island. I'll go, find the place that picked them up, look around for leads. Track some of the pirates down to ask. It's doable, Byrd. Can't guarantee it a hundred percent, but it's at worst the work of a couple months. If you're going to feel shitty long-term over this, it's a sound investment."

Yeah, so.

You're crying.

You rub at your face as if that could make it stop crumpling, and then you give up, curl in. You make that stupid whimper-gasp-y nasal noise; your nose is already clogging up. Aw, _fuck_.

"--Aw, come on, kid..."

The tray slides along the floor. He shuffles closer on his butt, doesn't touch you for a second, two -- hand on the back of your neck, squeezing. You allow yourself to topple forehead first into his shoulder.

(Your shades dig into your skull. He takes them off entirely.)

"I really suck at the comforting thing, Byrd, you know that, do you want a muffin? Hey, it's got purple bits. I bet those are clown pimples. Do I rub your back or what? Shit, you're old enough to tell me now, which button do I press here, come on, cheat code?"

He keeps up the rambling and the words are stupid enough that you snort out a wet laugh, but the tone is still quiet and careful and you never -- once when you broke your leg and once when he, you were training on the roof and you don't really remember, there was blood and you spend a lot of time on your back and also at the hospital, once like that. You're not broken that bad today, Jesus, this is ridiculous.

"S'okay," you tell him at a mumble. "I'm the emotional twin. S'just training. Tear duct output multiplied by ten. Can you imagine how bad Dave would freak."

"Shit would be hilarious," he intones, and the both of you ignore the fact that if Dave cried around you, you would freak out exactly as bad.

You sniffle for another minute before you feel that you can sit up. Bro takes off his tanktop and offers it to you, pointedly looking away. As he gets a fresh one from his sylladex you blow your nose on the old one (urgh, old man sweat) and wad it up, captchalogue it. It disappears into the laundry sub-folder, never to be acknowledged again.

Okay, no, you'll wash it at some point, it would be really gross as mementos go.

"So." He sneaks a look at you. His eyes are a pretty clear brown. "Muffin? This one has icing."

"Can I eat the icing and give you the rest?"

"Ha _ha_ no."

"Aw, come on."

"You can give me your licked-clean muffins the day I keel over, and not before. You lick it, you eat it. That's the rule."

You very briefly consider making a sex joke. _Very_ briefly.

You pick up the muffin and start chewing. It's got chocolate chips. Surprise present. Bro gets a croissant and actually unwraps its layers to eat them one by one, the freak. It dumps flakes all over the place; he licks his index finger to pat at them and pick them up off his pants.

You thought you wouldn't be hungry, but in the end the plate is empty and you ate about two thirds of everything. You captchalogue the tray and empty mug.

He's still sitting on the floor, staring at you. Your shades are resting beside his hip, his fingers cupped over them, careful to avoid the lenses.

"Just tell me whatever you decide," he says. "Whenever you decide; there's no time limit."

You nod, eyes down. It's still. It's -- hard. Do you want to know?

Do you want to run away from knowing?

If he'd attacked one of your friends, and the only way out was to kill him, you. You think you'd have killed him.

You'd have felt like shit afterwards, but put on the spot, you wouldn't even have thought first.

He was trying to kill you. (Was he? Would he have? You didn't kill the other one, Thigh-Stabbity, and he shot at you like... twice. You don't know, don't remember. He shot at you. Not at John or Jade or-- but you're allowed to protect yourself the same way you protect them. You _are_.)

Do you want to know?

"I'll tell you," you say, voice rough, and accept your shades from him.

You hang them from your collar when you walk out.

(By the time you're on the first floor and are hearing John in the distance you've put them back on. There's emotional honesty, and there's parading your tearstained face before people who'd feel horrible when it's okay, it's as fixed as it'll get for a while. You'll take them off again later, you promise yourself, and wave at John and enlist him for the laundry.)

\--

\-- terminallyCapricious [TC] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] -- 

TC: what's all and up, my motherfucker's motherfucker.  
TG: oh we get to do that now huh  
TG: all casual and buddy buddy stuff   
TG: yeah ok sure  
TG: nothing much whats up yourself you other woman you  
TC: where you be seeing a woman at, bro, i ain't even got enough tits to bother with no containment device to speak of.  
TG: that was an expression and thanks for the mental picture i needed that  
TG: i also need a hole in the head about the same way but i wont presume on your generosity no srsly dont bother  
TG: no but was there anything you actually wanted or are you just here to shoot the shit  
TC: i don't half mind as we pull trigger upon that wicked excrement, i guess.  
TC: but later maybe.  
TC: you any good at getting my best friend off?  
TG: oh no  
TC: no? ain't you MOTHERFUCKING LUCKY then.   
TC: i'm about to lay some wicked sage advice in your hearing plates, brother, you better get your thankful on.  
TG: no  
TG: nein  
TG: noppers  
TG: noperini  
TG: noppalachia  
TG: i am officially noping out of this conversation and into nope orbit  
TG: circling planet helltotheno in a stable nope orbit  
TG: norbit  
TC: haha  
TC: that is some fine trip  
TC: now let me talk at you on what makes him feel good  
TC: AND YOU ADD THE BULGE-TOUCHES IN YOUR OWN NASTY MOTHERFUCKING SELF.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] blocked terminallyCapricious [TC] -- 

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] -- 

CG: GAMZEE WANTS ME TO TELL YOU HE IS CURRENTLY LAUGHING HIS ASS OFF AND ALSO HE WAS FUCKING WITH YOU. DO I WANT TO KNOW WHAT ABOUT?  
TG: no  
TG: no you do not  
CG: THAT BAD, HUH.  
TG: mnurgh  
CG: ARE YOU GOING TO UNBLOCK HIM? ASKING IN THE SPIRIT OF HONEST UNCARING CURIOSITY, NOT SUGGESTING IN THE SPIRIT OF POINTED NONE OF MY BUSINESS HINTING.  
TG: oh yeah sure   
TG: why be fooled only once after all its such a fun nerve-strengthening experience  


\-- truncatedGrip [TG] unblocked terminallyCapricious [TC] -- 

TC: whoa, bro, where you be coming out of like your icon is all to be a magic trick?  
TG: went to a short trip to another dimension full of aliens who are not douches but it fucked up my sense of reality so bad i just went home  
TC: that sure as shit sounds like a thing that would do that.  
TG: yep  
TC: so about you and karkat getting your concupiscent on in ways as are not bulge-curdling failures.   
TG: fuckin called it  


\--  


\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering twinArmageddons [TA] --

TG: ill send you a pic of me cuddling dave in swim trunks if you fuck with daves settings to redirect all his youtube windows to teletubbies  
TA: 2old.  
TG: wow   
TG: did not think that would actually work  
TA: make 2ure you're weariing matchiing trunk2, iifyoudontmiind.  
TG: what no speedos for you  
TA: tbh you guy2' hangiing bulgefruiit thiing 2tiill kiinda gro22e2 me out.  
TG: oh so trolls dont have balls ok thats good to know  
TG: if i ask how you know what we guys are packing are you gonna answer internet or jake english  
TA: ii would love to 2ay the first one but ii never cared enough two check.  
TA: but boy doe2 JK take hii2 2kiinny diippiing 2eriiously  
TA: ii thiink the way iit flop2 around as you guy2 run wiill prevent me from 2eeiing any of you guy2 as an object of de2iire and not riidiicule forever and ever amen  
TG: bet you only say that long enough to get to see the back view  
TA: ......  
TA: yeah okay  
TA: woofbea2t2tyle 4 the win ii gue22

\--  


\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: k rose youre the cat worshipper here   
TG: do you have a magic trick to get gcat to stay the fuck out of the laundry basket   
TG: he always looks outraged and vanishes half my load when i drop more on his stupid glareblinding head  
TT: I'm afraid that is secret lore not to be imparted on fur-hating heretics and our rightful feathered prey.  
TT: Lore I am not high enough in the hierarchy of cat ladies to have been told, sadly enough.  
TG: damn  
TG: cant even sneak it off your cheat sheet huh  
TT: I guess you can attempt to rub the basket with lemon peels or even lemon juice. Cats often dislike citrusy scent.  
TG: yeah why not  
TG: now lets hope he wont port the basket into the sea so he can get at the laundry pile  
TT: Drop a glass of lemon juice on the pile, then. It's there to be washed, isn't it?  
TG: crazy enough to work  
TG: idk why he likes it down here so much i mean ive stepped on his tail and tried to captchalogue him in this very room but no hes got to come back again and again to be kicked at and shooed off  
TG: you think he feels the crow and thinks im the most scrumptious meal hes ever gonna see or what  
TG: and dont tell me im the proud new slave of a cat ok i refuse to hear it  
TT: Heh.  
TT: He's still around Jane pretty often when he's not gallivanting god knows where around the galaxy, I think you're safe from cat ownership for a little while longer.  
TG: thank fuck  
TG: while were on the subject have you checked mutie is getting enough food  
TT: Hm?  
TG: this furry asshole is getting so fat he flubbed a jump earlier today  
TG: sadly popped away before he hit the ground it woulda been hilarious but wow how many plates you been eating off bub are you pupating into jabba the hutt or  
TT: ...  
TT: I haven't actually gotten to approach him much in the last week. You say he's... gained weight?  
TG: um yeah???   
TG: i mean its hard to judge cause he wont let people touch him much and hes so ultra white you can see jack shit of his general shape like does he teleport even the shadows off  
TT: That  
TT: Would be a possibility.  
TT: Another fun possibility is the one I just thought of, but I think I'll wait a little for confirmation.  
TG: aw cmon rose dont you play all mysterious with me  
TG: whats there even to be mysterious about gcat and weight issu  
TG: jesus sucking dick on a sticky wheeled skateboard  
TG: gcat = girlcat?????  
TG: how come everyone who knows and cares about animals more than i do has been misgendering him then ???  
TT: Have you ever seen balls under that tail?  
TG: its not like ive ever LOOKED myself wtf  
TT: Believe me, with unfixed male cats, you do not need to actively look for it.  
TG: yeah but  
TG: huh  
TG: no wait remember the shadow bending i just mentioned you can seriously see nothing there apart from one very incongruous neon green asshole  
TT: Hence why I would rather gather more evidence before mentioning the possibility to anyone else.  
TT: Gcat has thieving capabilities even other cats do not, so the weight gain might have happened entirely naturally.   
TT: On the other hand, he's had his abilities all his life and maintained a normal weight until recently.  
TG: oh lord first guardian kittens  
TG: satan save us  
TG: think i need to lay down and be fanned a lot  
TT: I will ready the fainting couch.  
TG: kk see you in five

\--

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] --

CG: BYRD, WHERE ARE YOU?  
TG: bedroom why  
CG: BECAUSE I PLAN TO AVOID YOU FOR THE REST OF FOREVER FOR GROSS FAILURE TO APPLY YOUR LIPS TO MINE IN A SATISFACTORY FASHION.  
CG: THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A LIE AND I AM OBVIOUSLY LYING FOR SARCASTIC PURPOSES RELATED TO MY RETAINING THE CANTEKEROUS CROWN AND NOT IN ANY WAY SOMETHING THAT REFLECTS REALITY, NOW CAN WE MEET?  
TG: i like the kissing parts too  
TG: and uh did you mean in my bedroom cause its empty as fuck so i guess itd work and you know where it is already and   
TG: what do you wanna meet about  
CG: I WOULD RATHER TELL YOU IN PERSON. IT'S NOT CATASTROPHIC, BUT I'M EXTRA-DONE WITH INTERNETIZED SHENANIGANS FOR TODAY.  
CG: AND YEAH, NO, NOT YOUR RESPITEBLOCK.  
CG: LAUNDRY ROOM?  
TG: its a date  
TG: well not really but you know what i mean

You wonder, fleetingly, why you're so awkward with him, it's embarrassing. Where's your smooth?

Then you wonder why he didn't say something about how he did know what you meant, to his eternal shame. Is whatever happened that bad? Huh.

You slip into your flip-flops and flip-flop your way to the laundry room. It's not the first time you've used it to meet; it's not the most romantic place, but you're pretty much the only one who ever comes here apart from the cats and the Dads (and one time, you think, Bro, to put the washing machine back, but you weren't here at the time. You just... believe.)

The other day Karkat pulled laundry folding duty and rather than bringing the baskets of clean clothes up to the dining table the both of you spent an hour shooting the shit as you held down shirts by a corner so he could wrestle the collars into place. He hates the ones that flip back, and you have to admit he has an impressive knack for getting them to fold dead wrong. You think even now you'd manage them better than he does.

How did he do them before you came around, you wonder. Did he kneel on them or what? You crack a little smile to yourself imagining him with a leg folded up like a ballerina to get a heel on the table.

"Hey, you're here -- why are you smiling."

You arch an eyebrow over your shades. Karkat is standing in the doorway, both hands on the edges, furrowing his eyebrows at you.

"Hello to you too, sugarplum."

"No, that was a serious question," he gripes as he comes in, closing the door behind him, "where in my message did you see an indication that this was a smiling matter?"

But he comes to beach himself on the washing machine right next to yours, his side completely coincidentally brushing against yours on his way to lean his hands on there. You wonder if he'd fold in two over the machine and drape himself and his artistic woe there if he was given to more physical forms of theatrical bullshit. The dialogue sure would fit.

"Maybe I was just thinking about you," you say suavely. He throws you a dark side-glare. You duck-lip a little; he glares back, but underneath he looks a little tired. Worried? You shrug and go, "No, actually I was."

"That'd almost be sweet if I didn't know you were probably thinking about me and something _funny_."

"It was funny _and_ cute," you say to justify yourself, and then find yourself observing the aesthetical merits of a bottle of detergent you forgot to put back in its cupboard yesterday. Mm, now _that's_ a well-designed warning label.

"... Guess that's better," he mumbles, and leans against your side a little harder, face studiously turned away. You wonder if he's blushing too.

He turns around so you're both facing the same direction, arm against your arm. It's nice. He's warm, and there's, you don't know. You wonder if he's going to take your hand, or if you should, or something.

He sighs and pushes himself up to sit on a machine. You turn to quirk an eyebrow; he pats the other machine, still staring assiduously at the floor. Okay, okay; you hop up. You land a bit crooked; gives you an excuse to overcorrect and nudge your knees together.

"Whassup?"

Karkat groans quietly and slumps forward, hiding his face in both hands. The dark mess of his hair bobs along, the back flipping forward with gravity. You restrain the urge to scritch.

You don't restrain the urge to put your hand on his back, underneath his shoulder blades. He groans again; it resonates against your palm.

"I made a total hash of things with John."

Huh. "You did?" You're not sure how. Or why he's telling you especially -- wouldn't he tell either Gamzee or his dad first...? Oh. "You told him about us."

"Not even that much," Karkat grumbles, and pushes himself back into a sitting position. You drop your arm off him, awkward (does he want a hug or what? Are you supposed to just give one, or ask first?) "I just remembered he had that weird homosexual shit --"

"More like didn't have it."

Karkat glowers. "Who cares about your bullshit human categories, yeah, anyway, I thought I should... Oh, you know what, just read this, I can't go through this again."

He decaptchalogues his crabtop across his lap. It's still on, the window with ectoBiologist open, though Karkat is offline now.

You move the crabtop to your own lap and scroll back up.

You don't have to scroll very far.

EB: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LIKE-LIKE A HUMAN DUDE.  
EB: karkat no.  
EB: no, karkat.  
EB: you can *not* be doing that, it's a very bad plan and you know it!  
CG: I CAN DO WHAT THE FUCK EVER I WANT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU NOW??   
CG: WRONGER THAN USUAL.  
EB: you know better!!! human dudes are not  
EB: uh. is this human dude in the sub-category of dudes who like-like other dudes.  
CG: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I'D TELL YOU??  
EB: because i don't want you to get your stupid heart broken again!  
EB: or your spade, i guess.  
EB: your spade would get broken whether the dude liked dudes or not, so i really hope it's your heart!  
EB: not that i want it broken either. urgh. how do i words again.  
CG: OH.  
CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE TRYING TO GUESS WHO.  
CG: I AM NOT TELLING YOU THAT UNTIL I'M DAMN WELL READY.  
CG: BUT SORRY, I GUESS. AS IT HAPPENS, YES, HE FORTUITOUSLY BELONGS TO THE CATEGORY OF "DUDES" WHO "LIKE-LIKE" OTHER "DUDES" AND I AM DUMBER NOW FOR HAVING UTTERED THAT SENTENCE BY A TOTALLY IMPROBABLE PERCENTAGE.  
EB: you have a crush on dirk??  
EB: wow um, i guess thanks for telling me, and he's not that bad, not that i know him super well, but i guess he's... hot? he's pretty buff, at any rate? not that i can judge whatever it is you dudes of the dude-loving persuasion enjoy, but i can see that part.  
CG: SOMEONE PLEASE PUT A MERCIFUL BULLET IN THE BACK OF MY THINKPAN.   
CG: IT'S *NOT* DIRK.  
EB: ...  
EB: OH MY GOD, KARKAT, NO!!!  
EB: YOU CAN'T HIT ON MR. STRIDER, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!

Follow several lines of the two of them freaking out to an unexpected level of freaking-out, and you knew John was prone to flying off the handle from time to time, and Karkat is, well, Karkat, but even so it seems a bit excessive.

"What's that bit about?" you ask, pointing at a line. John is yelling something about 'the last time' and 'how do you still not understand it's a bad idea after THAT', complete with several pairs of emphasis stars around the yellface.

Karkat doesn't answer for a bit too long, and when you look at him again he's ...

Serious? Subdued.

He's thinking about whether to tell you, and it seems -- pretty heavy.

You take your hand off the arrow key and nudge the side of his hand with yours. After a few seconds he takes it, squeezes -- you feel claws, brushing against the back of your hands as your fingers interlace.

"If you tell anyone, I won't forgive you," he says, and he's quiet and intense enough that you believe him immediately.

You nod. Wish you'd taken off your shades now. Captchaloguing them off your face would look stupid, like you're trying to be cool, not taking him seriously. "I won't tell. Promise."

He stares at you for a little while, and you tilt your head so you can meet his eyes.

"You remember," he starts, "when we were spying on Dirk and Bro in the crawlspace with Jade, and I told you -- I told you adults were bad news? To younger trolls?"

You blink. You have to admit you kind of forgot about it a bit. You remember them all watching the adults like hawks, though that's tapered way off, of course, but you never really thought about it more in depth than that. Troll society is fucked up, the end.

"Bad news how?" You frown.

Karkat breathes out through his nose, rakes his free hand through his hair, between his horns, and then gives himself a sudden long, hard scratch, growling quietly under his breath. "Adult trolls have no reason to give a shit about sub-adults, except to either fuck or eat them," he says brusquely. "Which John knows because guess what we assumed when we ended up at his place."

For a long moment you sit there digesting the implications of that. They thought _Paul "Dad of the Year" Egbert_ would ...?

... They thought a pretty strong adult had them trapped in his house, and it's not like they could have fucked off if he got too handsy. It was a stupid assumption, but -- Jesus, that kind of life, no wonder they're all a little fucked up.

"Is that why Terezi was circling Bro like a mini shark?" you say with a groan. "Did Kanaya also--"

"We assumed Dave and Rose would protect them," Karkat tells you tiredly, shoulders slumped. "Seeing as, you know, they were their matesprits, and neither Gamzee nor I were quadranted with John." He's still not looking at you. You squeeze his hand a bit.

So they spent like a week thinking they were gonna have to pay rent with their asses, and he didn't have anyone to protect him, or his palebro. Wow, you wonder how _that_ went down.

"I'm surprised Egbert the elder didn't die of Gamzee," you manage after a moment of blank.

Karkat barks out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, that was close. He was fucking sick of killing people, though, and I had already thrown myself at Dad, so he followed my lead. I guess that was better in the long run. Even if I'd rather -- if --"

He can't finish. You tug your hand free and slip your arm around his shoulders, squeeze awkwardly. You don't want to hear more -- you do with a kind of sick fascination -- it's too heavy for you, and if he wants to tell you, you will sit your ass right here and listen to every single word.

"If he had been a troll, I'd rather Gamzee _had_ killed him rather than let himself be touched," he rasps.

You notice he says jack shit about being touched himself.

"And why are we even -- fuck, why are we talking about this, it's over and done with and. _Fuck_."

"Because John brought it up," you say, and eye the screen. Yeah, you understand how it devolved into a snarling match so damn fast now. "Also because -- like, I'm sure he said it because he was worried for you, and also because for humans it _is_ weird for a dude our age to go after someone like twice as old, but he did manage to say shit that sounds a bit like hey, you almost got yourself raped once, why are you trying for an encore."

Karkat growls, an inhuman, shivery sound like scales on stone. You smother a wince and keep talking, try to keep your voice slow and even.

"I mean, I understand why you got pissed off. And I'm sure John will understand what it sounded like and feel properly shitty about it as soon as he sits down to think. He's not that much of an asshole, he just gets all yelly sometimes and blurts shit out and then he's like oh hell, I was an assbutt, sorry."

Karkat's sitting all stiff. Does it sound like you're taking John's side? Um.

"All that to say I don't think you fucked things up with John, I think _he_ did and now you're gonna get pretty nice mileage out of the ensuing crawling."

Karkat breathes out through his nose and then leans on your shoulder all at once, head tilting until his horn nudges at your deltoid.

"... He's not gonna open his fat mouth a lot more about whoever you decide to smooch," you say, a bit quieter, and ruffle his hair gently. Karkat grumbles and burrows into your shoulder, eyes closed tight. "I'll yell at him if he hasn't noticed he was a buttface yet, okay? Mad diamond pimp action, yo."

Karkat groans, and then laughs, rusty and quiet. "That's one fucking dirty diamond."

"Fuck yeah, I offer naught but the raunchiest experience."

Karkat sighs a little, and straightens up, lifts his head -- though he keeps leaning on your shoulder, which is nice. "I guess when my human brother is my matesprit's moirail a small amount of ashenness isn't too out of bounds," he says mock-philosophically. "I might be -- kind of -- a bit too stern about boundaries. I mean, you're a human, you're a dirty quadrant-blurring fuckfest all on your lonesome."

You hum thoughtfully. "I do like being a fuckfest."

Karkat rolls his eyes at you, and slips his arm around your shoulders in a totally casual yet suave manner, hand resting on your other shoulder. You flick him a smirk.

"You're... not angry I told him, are you? Or tried to tell him, I guess. Partially tell him. Stuff."

Pff. "Do I look angry, bro."

"Do you ever look anything, you wall-faced douche?"

"Point." You shrug a bit. "Nah, it's cool. Can't hide it from everyone forever, especially with how people don't know how to knock around here. By the way, Roxy and Jane saw my hickeys."

Karkat considers that, mouth twisted like he's not too sure about it, but in the end he shrugs. "Guess I don't mind them knowing much. But you don't mind that I brought it up with John first?"

"Nah. I'm just his friend. You're his brother."

It is, by the way, weird as fuck, and kinda sitcom-y, and doesn't feel entirely real to you. Karkat and Gamzee and even John desperately want to make it real, though, and it shows most in small moments.

Like now. "Yeah," Karkat counters, the way people do when they don't want to brag _but_ , all pleased-squirmy, "but I've been his brother two weeks."

"Still counts, dude." You let him have his moment, and then you say, light and teasing and not sure if the nerves are because it'd be nice or too much, "So... like- _like_?"

Karkat says nothing, just side-headbutts his hard little horn right into your shoulder.

"Ow."

"I never want to hear that asinine term pass your lips again, I will sentence you to--"

"Kissing? Say it's kissing."

You turn a bit in your seat in case he wants to lean in, give him a hopeful eyebrow waggle. You can tell he's going to give in--

" _Is that Dave or Byrd?_ " John asks right through the door.

You and Karkat do an instantaneous impression of park statues, complete with heartbeat count.

John sounds all weird and tense, is the thing. "Sorry for asking," he adds, "but I can't tell you guys apart by voice!"

Um.

You exchange a look with Karkat, and then you both stare at the door.

"Who needs to know," you drawl, to gain a few precious seconds to restart your brain.

"The person who might have to tell Terezi her boyfriend is cheating on her!" John yells back. "So I'd really like it if you're Byrd, only Byrd doesn't even know Karkat or, like, talk to him, so -- augh!"

... Yeah, okay, you're laughing. You pinch your lips together and a long pffffffffr still escapes. Lips forcefully turned down, you nudge Karkat and then slip off the washing machine to go open the door. Karkat stays perched, though he takes to massaging the bridge of his nose like he's trying to pinch it off.

"We talk with our bodies," you say blandly when you open the door, and John goes "Augh!" again and shoves you in the chest. You sway back agreeably.

"Come in and close the door already," Karkat groans. "And let's hope no one heard you yelling, do you even know how many rumors and wacky misunderstandings you could start? You're lucky Terezi can smell where Dave has been and there's no chance she'll do anything but laugh it off."

John walks in, looking flustered to death. His face is tomato-colored; he's scowling like it'll can make the both of you miss that. Your own cheeks feel a bit warm, so you look away. You're a bit glad you didn't manage to take off your shades now.

You make sure you close the door behind him, which of course means he glances at Karkat, glances away suspiciously fast, and rounds on you. "And since when do you like dudes!? You dated Jade! Dave's dating Terezi! Those are two girls!"

"I also think Jane is pretty cute," you say blandly, to make him shudder.

"See!"

You pinch your lips pointedly. "And your dad is pretty ripped."

The face he makes. Pfff. He catches himself, but it's too late, you're already smirking.

"Ha _ha_ very funny -- _not_."

"Kidding." See? You can be merciful. "But not about the dude thing." Okay, you're not _that_ merciful.

It's ridiculous how nervous you are about this underneath, though. Rose is lesbian as hell and Dirk and Bro make no secret of their dicks-only thing and he's fine with it, but...

None of them are his best no-homo bro. You're not sure, it feels like it could be... not the same thing. Urgh. Confusing. You're confused.

"--But Dave's not -- I mean -- is he? Augh." John starts to pace in the little space there is between the washing and drying machines. You go back to Karkat, though you don't sit on the machine again, just lean back, leaving a decorous two inches between the two of you for John's sanity.

It's almost more hilarious than it is nerve-wracking.

You've got no idea if Dave is. You've got educated guesses, but -- wow, you actually have no idea.

"Back when we were both a single Dave, we were, if you'll recall, thirteen year old little jackasses." You shrug. "If he's told you he's straight since then, like, in a non-joking manner, my best guess is he put any yes homo thoughts he had in the corner of 'nah, son, that's just teenage hormones and fucked up dreams, thanks for all the puppets Bro.' Then he met Terezi, so he pretty much had no reason to think about it again because somehow all of his libido has gotten refocused on cackling bags of knifes. Idek. For all I know he has vivid fantasies about your _other_ brother. Kismesandwich daydreams. One snarly asshole troll bun on each side of his sausage -- ow."

Karkat, predictably, has just kicked you. John gives him a firm, approving nod.

"Does that mean _you_ had reason to think about it?" Karkat asks, an eyebrow up. Oh hell. You sneak him a glare. You'd been hoping it would pass John by.

Yeah so John I by the way used to find you kinda cute. _Hahahahaha_ you will _die_ first before you admit that to either of them.

"Yeah, I had that condition called being a sprite where I could neither sleep nor wank, but I sure as hell could daydream about it. It was my favorite torture method! Hey, what _could_ I be doing with my junk that I'm not because I can't?"

... Urgh. You didn't know what else to answer with that'd cut this line of inquiry short, but now the mood of everyone in the room is taking a major nosedive. John looks all sorry and awkward, and Karkat is wincing and looks about to embark into an apology-off. Which, urgh, nobody's got time for that.

"But now I can, glory be hallelujah, and there are even willing participants, is this heaven maybe?" You sigh, rub a hand against your face. "Seriously, at this point, even if I _was_ straight I'd be ready to make all the exceptions."

You drape your arm across your waist the way you'd cross your arms if you still had both (it's awkward and your limb does not hold itself up which makes for an unnatural feel, wow) and look away from the both of them.

"But. Yeah." All your words are gone and now you're back in awkward mumble country. You gesture vaguely, not looking up. "Also dudes. Some dudes. Iunno."

"You had _better_ know if you're attracted to my little brother," John says in a funny-stern tone. You look up, and he's snickering at you, that dickface.

"Hey, you've been told a dozen times, I'm older than you are," Karkat replies, but he has to purse his lips to keep from grinning back. D'aw, cute. "Also, Gamzee is still eldest, to my everlasting chagrin."

"Ugh! Yeah, mine too. So unfair."

There's a moment of silence where everyone remembers that this is awkward as fuck for all parties involved and alternately look at and avoid looking at people.

"Um yes. I was coming for another thing, actually."

John turns toward Karkat, who has both hands on the edge of his washing machine, casual, and who fools absolutely no one.

"Yeah, er. Sorry for. You know. Saying stupid things. Because they were pretty stupid and, and also kind of jerkish and. You know. Sorry."

Karkat ducks his head to hide a smile.

"Yeah, sure," he says, and bam, matter closed. He chews on his lip thoughtfully with his little pointy teeth, and then adds, "Guess I was defensive as hell, and I ... probably didn't need to be. Sorry for not telling you upfront? I suppose. In my defense, I had barely started and you were already flipping your lid."

"I'm still flipping my lid!" John assures him with wide-eyed earnestness. "Just, you know, not in a judgey way. I mean. I already knew you kissed boys anyway and it's none of my business who Byrd kisses, eugh, but yeah, the bro dating bro thing is a bit..."

You arch an eyebrow in pointed, challenging question. If he says the idea of the two of you making out is gross or incestuous or whatever else he's got in there you are going to _demonstrate_.

"I'll magnanimously forgive you if you shut up about it," Karkat says, and swings his foot in the most half-hearted attempt at a kick ever.

"I will if he treats you right!" John exclaims, and moves closed to Karkat, eyeing you suspiciously.

Okay, that was unexpected. He's taking the protective brother thing a bit more seriously than you anticipated, even if he's mostly playing right now. You give a solemn nod. "Wouldn't dream otherwise."

"Uh _huh_. Is that why you haven't asked Dad for permission yet?"

You stare. "John, no." He grins. Karkat arches his eyebrows. "No, John. Do not talk Karkat into believing that outdated tripe is actually a thing that is done in anything but bad movies from the fifties. I refuse."

"Asking the lusus for permission?" Karkat says. "It's not a thing we did much of, though if a quadrant was sticking around we'd start trying to get our lusus used to them so there wouldn't be any accidental eating..."

"Yeah, it's kind of like that!" John says, "only less with eating and more with shotguns." He beams at you, all teeth out. That _asshole_. "You should be okay, my dad doesn't use guns!"

A pregnant pause.

"His fists are all the firepower he needs."

You and Karkat groan.

You notice he still looks a little wistfully interested, though. Urgh.

Not something you're gonna discuss with John here.

"--Wait a fucking second, does that mean I'd have to ask Bro?"

Okay, _now_ you're tempted to do it. This would be completely fucking hilarious, you're snorting a little just thinking about it.

Kinda mean too. You know he's still wary of the adults, especially yours. You step closer, back to your designated washing machine, leaning on a hip so you can face the two of them.

"Nah, man. He already knows, I think he must have caught us macking that first time or something, he mentioned it like the very next day."

John grimaces at the mention of macking.

"The first time?" Karkat repeats, a bushy eyebrow arched up and the corner of his mouth quirked in a half-smirk. "Jesus, he must have been bored, it was kind of not great."

"--Oi!"

John cracks up. "What's that? You're not even macking on him properly? I'm going to have to deny you a dating permit, Mister Strider, we can't have that."

"Oh, shut up or I'll tell you everything about the successes we've had since then."

He recoils. "Awgh! No, forbidden, shut up. How did you even get so many occasions to mack, anyways, I noticed nothing! Is that why you didn't want to share the dorm room--"

"Fuck no, it wasn't. And not that it's any of your business who comes into my room but some days it feels like everyone but Karkat has been in it, so you can keep sprawling on my bed without being scared of gay cooties."

"Awesome. I like sprawling on your bed too much to give it up," John says with a smug nod. He loves to do it mostly because he knows how much it annoys you.

Karkat is saying nothing, but he watches the two of you with that tiny, closemouthed smile you're not sure he's even aware of. You tilt your head to look at him over your shades, shift a bit closer so you're in sneaky contact with his knee, and feel daring as hell and kind of weird. It's strange after hiding it (so badly) for a while to be touchy-feely around other people.

Oh man, how are you going to deal with PDAs. Playing dead? Yeah, sounds good.

"If the two of you don't stop gazing into each other's eyes I am going to puke all over the laundry," John says around a pained moan.

You shrug, and lean in a bit more.

"Go ahead. It's about to go in the washing machine anyway."

"I really don't think you should put the chunky bits in with the rest," Karkat muses. John groans harder and shoves at his shoulder.

The three of you end up grinning at each other like complete tools. Dork implosion in three... two... one... if you can't rescue this from the land of uncool cute --

"Okay I do have this here laundry to manage and you guys are cramping my style," you say, and Karkat sighs and slips off the machine.

"I'd help, but I do want to get the fuck out of here and let the noxious stink of public embarrassment dissipate before I come again," he says, and pushes John toward the door. John makes a protesting noise.

You can tell he's gonna be difficult. You join Karkat in pushing him toward the door, and when he resists you go, "So has Roxy asked Dadbert for your hand in marriage yet? Because I could do with pointers from my best kinda-mom."

Karkat goes on point like a hunting dog. John looks at his face and groans long and loud. "Byrd, you _dick_."

He steps out, though. Victory. Karkat goes to follow him, and you're honestly caught by surprise when he stops, turns around, and steals a quick, slightly off-center kiss. "There," he says with another crooked smile, "now about Roxy--"

"There is nothing about Roxy!" John protests as he trudges off, and Karkat ambles after him, hands in pockets and shoulders loose like you almost never see them.

You go back to the laundry.

You pause for a bit to enjoy the warm glow of successfully navigating that potential clusterfuck to the satisfaction and happiness of all involved. Good job, Byrd. That was good. You did good.

If there was an interpersonal relationships echeladder you feel like this would have brought you three levels up.

Also you got a thank-you kiss and scored several zingers off John.

Maybe even five levels. Ding ding ding. Murder of Crowster unlocked.


	18. 17: Day Twenty-Seven, first half

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O omigosh hide your grandma's eyes, sound the smut alarm.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] started trolling truncatedGrip [TG] --

CG: HE WAKES. THREE CHEERS FOR THE MIRACLE MAN.  
CG: YOU *ARE* AWARE YOU MISSED LUNCH, RIGHT?  
TG: missed me huh   
CG: IT WAS LIKE A WEEPING WOUND UPON MY VERY SOUL.  
CG: NO, I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU COULD REALLY BE SUCH A LAZY JACKASS, BUT I SET MYSELF UP FOR THIS ANSWER.  
CG: I'M THE ONE SUPPOSED TO BE NOCTURNAL HERE, BACK YOUR ASS OFF MY TURF.  
TG: its not my fault the parental units forgot to turn off the internet at two am for once  
TG: entrapment i say  
CG: IT CERTAINLY IS YOUR FAULT THAT I AM NOW WONDERING WHETHER I WANT TO ASK YOU WHEN YOU DID FINALLY PASS OUT LAST NIGHT, BUT KNOWING WILL ONLY DROP ANOTHER BOMB ONTO THE RUINS OF MY OPINION OF YOUR SELF-RELIANCE AND THEY REALLY DON'T NEED IT.  
TG: you sure know how to sweet-talk a lady   
TG: swoon swoon boom  
CG: PFF.   
CG: ARE YOU EVEN AWAKE.  
TG: no im byrd  
CG: NO, YOU'RE RIDICULOUS.  
CG: CHANGE OF TOPIC, BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY SORRY BASTARD I SEE MYSELF ASKING THIS TO WHO PROBABLY WON'T TROLL THE UNHOLY INCESTIAL FUCK OUT OF ME, AND BY THE TIME THEY TURN THE INTERNET BACK ON I'LL HAVE FORGOTTEN I EVER GAVE IT A PASSING, WEAK-ASSED SHIT.   
CG: THE TURD WAS NOT SO MUCH EXPELLED AS IT DRIFTED AWAY NONCHALANTLY ON WINGS OF GAUZE AND TOILET PAPER, LEAVING ONLY A LAZY, GREASY SMEAR.  
TG: haha so trusting   
TG: k shoot  
CG: AT WHICH AGE DOES A HUMAN START GETTING HAIRY ON THE BACK?  
CG: BECAUSE APART FROM THAT REALLY THIN VELVET THING NEITHER YOU NOR JOHN HAVE ANY THERE THAT I'VE SEEN, BUT DAD CERTAINLY DOES.  
TG: oh god lord in heaven  
TG: i will believe in you if you make it stop hows that for a bargain  
CG: DO YOU GUYS ONLY ATTAIN A FULL COAT OF FUR TO PROTECT YOURSELVES FROM THE COLD IN OLD AGE? WHAT'S UP WITH THAT LOGIC, YOU'D THINK IT WOULD COME IN HANDY BEFORE THEN.  
TG: i hope to fuck my hairy back time comes *never* whether in hell or in fucken neverland or anywhere time still has any meaning at all  
CG: THAT DOES SOUND LIKE A REASONABLE, SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND TIMEFRAME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INVALUABLE KNOWLEDGE, PROFESSOR STRIDER.  
TG: np  
CG: HAR HAR.  
CG: WHAT'S WITH THAT REACTION? IS IT A CULTURAL AESTHETIC TO DIVEST YOURSELVES OF ALL FOLLICULAR GROWTH, MAYBE?  
CG: I'VE SEEN JOHN AND DAD TAKE RAZORS TO THEIR FACES AND THROATS, AND WASN'T THAT NICELY TRAUMATIC. WHY NOT THEIR EYEBROWS? THEIR SCALP HAIR? WHAT MAKES ONE DIFFERENT?  
TG: karkat man what the heck has got you this curious about a mans personal hirsuteness  
TG: im so torn here you have no idea on one hand im like duty bound to make a carpet joke but on the other hand  
CG: CARPET. WHAT.  
TG: nvm  
TG: the boring answer today woo  
TG: body hair is mostly a question of hormonal levels johns dad and john being founts of manliness have a lot us strilondes less so  
TG: also were blond theyre really dark haired so i guess it shows more on them idk  
TG: boys are hairier than girls chest hair is a man thing back hair is a gross as hell old dude thing tadah you know everything change of topic plz  
CG: DID I WALK INTO A SOCIETAL TABOO OR SOMETHING? YOU SEEM *UNCOMFORTABLE*, AND THAT'S JUST WEIRD AS FUCK.  
TG: oh fuck you im not uncomfortable whats there to be uncomfortable about  
CG: YOU HAVE YET TO SPIN RIDICULOUSLY OVERBLOWN FAKE TALES ABOUT IT.  
TG: why do you want to know  
TG: about the hair i mean not about why i dont want you to know about the hair  
TG: not to say i dont want you to know about the hair  
TG: um  
TG: im half asleep ok  
TG: why did i think i wanted to date a morning person jegus how could i have been so wrong  
TG: can we have this conversation again when im actually awake  
CG: DENIED. LIKE I'M GOING TO LET YOU HAVE SEVERAL HOURS IN WHICH TO PLAN OUT YOUR EVASIONS AND LIES.  
CG: IF IT'S HONESTLY BOTHERING YOU THEN I'M SORRY BUT YOU HUMANS *DO* HAVE BODY FUR. IT SEEMS SILLY TO IGNORE IT.  
CG: IS IT TABOO TO STROKE IT OR WHAT? AM I SUPPOSED TO PRETEND I DON'T FEEL IT?  
TG: where do you want to be feeling my fur exactly  
CG: YOUR... ARMS? YOU DON'T HAVE MUCH THERE, THOUGH.  
CG: BY THE WAY, IS IT NORMAL THAT JADE'S LEGS ARE HAIRIER THAN YOURS, IF MALES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HAIRIER?  
TG: oh lord dont mention it around any of the girls or well have to listen to a three hour cred about how a girl is free not to shave if she wants to and it still looks just fine you sexist pigs  
CG: I THOUGHT IT LOOKED FINE ALREADY. SHE HAS PRETTY NICE LEGS.  
CG: SHIT, I WAS PROBABLY NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY THAT AROUND YOU. MY BAD.  
TG: haha i dont care youre right so hey  
TG: idk cultural whatchamacallit says girls are supposed to be like baby smooth everywhere but their skull  
TG: and considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to shave my face when i have to do it like not even once a week i get why having to do your whole body would get really annoying  
TG: at the same time smooth skin looks and feels nice too so yeah i am steering way fucking clear of that debate slash killing field  
CG: I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU IDIOTS HAVE ATTACHED ANY JUDGMENTS OF VALUE ON WHAT KIND OF NICE YOUR SKIN FEELS LIKE, BUT I AM REFUSING ALL BLAME FOR THIS CLUSTERFUCK. PUT IT AT THE MEOWRAILS'S FEET.  
CG: YOUR FUZZ FEELS NICE TOO, IF A BIT LIKE I'M INAPPROPRIATELY FONDLING A MEOWBEAST GRUB.  
TG: iyaan vantas sempai so inappropriate im a good innocent girl you cant say that kind of thing to me what will my parents say  
TG: okay fine its compliments time so  
TG: your skin feels super nice i could fondle it for hours like youre a babys ass cheeks and i just applied a truckload of baby powder until it looks like im doing coke on that nice smooth baby butt but no just nuzzling away like a baby addict  
TG: (pedo king achievement unlocked)  
CG: SHOULD I PRETEND TO BE FLUSTERED HERE?  
CG: I'M. NOT THAT GOOD AT FLIRTING.  
CG: I MEAN UNLESS IT'S CALIGINOUS, SOMEHOW I MANAGE TO PISS PEOPLE OFF WHILE MENTIONING MY BULGE EASILY ENOUGH BUT  
CG: ARGH.  
CG: THANK YOU?  
TG: hahaha  
TG: np   
TG: sok lets just continue the convo like smooth kings of smooth  
TG: anyway body hair is a remnant from our monkey ancestors thats pretty useless now but evolution hasnt gotten around to ridding us of it entirely just yet  
TG: so we just get vestigial fuzz thats not much help for warmth  
TG: i guess eyebrows are useful for making faces at each other and eyelashes for not getting shit on our eyeballs but apart from that idk  
CG: WE HAVE EYEBROWS AND EYELASHES TOO. YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED. I DON'T THINK IT'S THE SAME SYSTEM?  
TG: man dont ask me i got no clue im not your nerdy biologist brother  
TG: you guys got anything like that btw while were at it  
TG: i mean not hair obvs but similar weird vestigial things  
CG: NOT... REALLY? WE USE EVERYTHING WE HAVE. EVERYTHING YOU CAN SEE, AT LEAST, THERE ARE VESTIGIAL ORGANS BUT THEY STILL SORT OF HAVE A USE, JUST NOT AN ESSENTIAL ONE.  
TG: huh and what about the horns?? headbutting seriously still that relevant to your life experience & survival now that we have strife specibi  
CG: HORNS ARE NOT FOR FIGHTING TO THE DEATH WITH, YOU DAFT FUCKTURNIP.   
CG: WE TALKED ABOUT IT THAT TIME AGES AGO, REMEMBER? I TOLD YOU WE USED THEM TO SENSE OUR SURROUNDINGS AND YOU PROMPTLY SMEARED YOUR SWEATY FROND ALL OVER POOR RIGHTY.  
TG: oh right haha welp sorry righty  
TG: echolocation or something yeah  
CG: THAT AND PSYCHIC POWER AMPLIFICATION, IF YOU HAVE ANY, BUT I DON'T.   
TG: ok fine you totally use your tiny baby cuddlenubs for things that arent headbutting anyone in the chest ok gotcha  
TG: anything else  
CG: FUCK YOU UPSIDE DOWN AND SIDEWAYS.   
CG: ALSO YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, I STILL HAVE A SMALL PIECE OF GRUB SHELL ON MY BACK FROM MY LAST MOLT. IT HAPPENS SOMETIMES.  
CG: SOME PEOPLE TEAR THEIRS OFF BECAUSE IT'S... A BIT CHILDISH, I GUESS. BUT I CAN'T REACH VERY WELL.  
TG: want me to do it for you   
TG: i bet itll be gross but ill do it for a kiss  
TG: ok several kisses  
TG: throw in an ass grope too and youre golden  
CG: OH, I INTEND TO DO THAT EITHER WAY.  
TG: woo  
TG: see you manage flirting p well after all  
CG: SHUSH.  
TG: sure thing sexy  
CG: OH, COME ON.  
CG: ANYWAY, ABOUT MY BABY SHELL, I... HM.  
CG: I ALWAYS THOUGHT ABOUT TRYING TO GET IT OFF, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, THOSE GUSH LIKE THEY THINK THEY'RE PLUGGING *ARTERIES.* WHICH IS NOT THE CASE AT ALL BUT IT *WOULD* GET EVERYWHERE.  
CG: AND IT WOULD MAKE FOR A STUPID SCAR.  
CG: AND I'M USED TO IT NOW.  
CG: I DON'T KNOW.  
TG: how bout we bring the womens liberation to you and get you to decide whether to keep it on because you like or dont like it that way and not because it looks like you still got grub on you and some dead assholes out there might have cared  
CG: THAT SOUNDED A BIT PALE THERE. SCALE THE MIND READING DOWN SOME, WILL YOU?  
TG: ok what did i do  
TG: oops i totally just pulled a rose there a bit didnt i  
TG: but seriously its that pale??  
CG: NOT BADLY SO, BUT I FIGURED I'D BETTER NIP IT IN THE BUD BEFORE YOU DUG ANY DEEPER INTO MY JUICY INADEQUACIES. YOU HUMANS ARE PREDICTABLY DIAMOND-EASY THAT WAY.  
CG: (:B  
TG: B:O !!  
TG: (shades not horns)  
TG: ........  
TG: holy fuck what am i doing with my life  
TG: what did you do to me i claim witchery  
CG: I USED A SMILEY TOO, CHUMPBUCKET.  
TG: yay new pet name  
CG: IF YOU LIKE IT WE CAN MAKE IT OFFICIAL.  
TG: idk i like nookstain too this is a difficult decision  
CG: ...  
TG: taintlicker i like that one too  
CG: YOU'RE GOING TO THROW MY INSULTS BACK AT ME AND MAKE THEM AS SEXUALLY CHARGED AS YOU CAN, AREN'T YOU.  
TG: they kind of already are dude blame yourself for the uncomfortably prurient imagery  
TG: hmmmmmmm bulge jockey  
CG: SO.  
CG: EXPLAIN THE CARPET JOKE.  
TG: fff  
CG: BYRD?  
CG: BYRD.  
CG: I WIN.  
TG: those are fighting words  
TG: okay fine humans also have hairy crotches there you happy  
TG: its longer and thicker than body hair and friggin curly to boot  
TG: so the first time you behold my temple to manhood rising to salute your moons itll be emerging from its own special little jungle  
TG: whatcha say vantas wanna pet my pocket sheep  
CG: HUH.  
CG: YOU'RE RIGHT, THE PLACEMENT OF THIS LATEST PATCH IS BIZARRE.  
TG: when you think about it its all pretty bizarre anyway  
CG: OKAY.  
TG: ?  
CG: I'M SAYING YES, OKAY, I WILL FONDLE YOUR BAABEAST. IT'S JUST SO WEIRD, IT BECOMES FASCINATING.  
TG: uh  
CG: WAS THE INVITATION ENTIRELY INSINCERE OR JUST MOSTLY INSINCERE AS A SHIELD AROUND A KERNEL OF I WANT THIS TOO MUCH TO ADMIT IT?  
TG: pale zone alert pale zone alert warning trespasser step back or be shot  
CG: ARGH. SORRY. IT'S YOUR FAULT ANYWAY, YOUR HUMANNESS GETS ON EVERYTHING.  
TG: i just uh  
TG: you realize its growing around my dick right  
TG: you also realize my dick aka cock aka snotlauncher aka dong is what i call my  
TG: lets go with trollian terminology  
TG: concupiscent parts  
CG: YES, BYRD, AS I STILL HAVE A FUNCTIONAL THINKSPONGE, I HAD FIGURED OUT WHAT ITS CROTCHEAL LOCATION IMPLIED.  
TG: oh good  
TG: uh  
TG: am i the only one doing show and tell in this class or  
CG: OF COURSE NOT.  
TG: ok cool  
CG: I'LL SHOW YOU MY GRUB SHELL.  
TG: karkat douchebastard vantas you son of a bitch  
TG: ok not a bitch guess thats inaccurate  
TG: your mom was a killer wasp and your dad a fire ant  
TG: also you smell like poo  
CG: (:<B  
CG: ALSO MY BONEBULGE. MAYBE.  
TG: ..........  
TG: okay yes i am amenable to this suggestion  
TG: amenable is now my middle name  
TG: jet ski hangar in five bring a towel and your mating bits

\--

You're not quite as amenable as you say.

Do you want to see what he's packing and maybe get your hands all over it? Fuck yes.

What you don't want is him seeing you see him. Like -- you don't know. What if you're surprised and make a face and he's offended. What if it turns out not to be sexy, too weird for sexy, what if you try to touch him nice and mess up and all your attraction fizzles out and that's it, the two of you are done.

Should have done the show and tell via webcam, you think. Grainy pictures, anticipation, and no chance to be asked to touch anything you got no clue how to touch properly.

So why the hell did you suggest it at all?

Easy. You're sixteen. You have three years of thwarted puberty to catch up on. As you walk down the corridors all casual and cool your stomach is churning just a little bit, which is a pretty weird feeling considering you're also sporting a chubby.

You want to thank the academy and also baby Jesus when you meet absolutely no one on your way, up one level to avoid the machine room and then down to the garage.

It's a place that sounds like it should be dirtier than it is, but... Half of it is storage space, a shit-ton of cupboards for everything from diving equipment and wetsuits to floaters and nets to set up a pool in the sea off the back of the ship, balls and racquets and stuff.

The other half has two boats and six (*six*, Jesus dick, rich people are something else) jet skis on trailers, ready to be lowered into the water through the sides of the ship. You don't even gotta do any hard work, just hook the thing to the pulley and press a button and everything is handled electronically. (Of course it's locked at the moment but you weren't really looking to take a trip on the high seas with Karkat.)

Anyway there's pretty much no cover in the storage half, unless you want to drag out the wetsuit rack for a wall and pretend no one can see the two of you on the floor through the trailing legs.

That corner by the wall, though, behind one of the yachts...

It's ridiculous how your heart is beating in your throat from nervous guilt as you approach, as you crouch there to check out the line of sight; it's like Bro is going to burst out any second now and demand to know what the hell you think you're doing here.

It's _not_ the sexiest, is what you kind of think. Anyone finds you here, they're gonna know what you were doing in a hot second, there's pretty much no other reason to be hidden away in a freaking hangar.

You decaptchalogue a blanket and feel even more awkward than you did before. The only thing worse for the already mildly sordid atmosphere would be if the floor were bare cement, but it's something hard and white and plasticky instead.

And Karkat is still not here. Mnrgh. You pace for a bit before sitting down in the corner, bundled up in the blanket. He's not online anymore, so you can't even ask what's keeping him.

Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe John or Jade or Gamzee dragged him off and he couldn't say what else he had to do. Maybe he slipped on the staircase and knocked himself out in his haste to behold your snot rocket -- haha, okay, let's not be melodramatic now.

He's not coming. You strain your ear at every little sound and the most you hear is a vague hum of halogen light and the quiet creaks of the hull.

Minutes pass and he's not coming and your chubby is wilting with sadness and woe. It freaking sucks. What a stupid feeling. You wonder if you can keep your emotional twin crown if you reject one of 'em, because... yeah, no thanks. Nein. Do not want. Being stood up is that sad, ashamed thing curling around your guts and slowly strangling the life out of them with emo woe and -- footsteps.

Footsteps! Glory hallelujah you _are_ a tool. You almost show yourself, but then what if it's not him and, um --

"Byrd?" he whispers at full volume. The soul of discretion. You chuckle and free your arm from your blanket cocoon to wave around the hull of the boat.

"Shh! C'mon." You grin up at him when he walks around and sees you. "What took you so long?"

With a groan, Karkat lowers himself to the floor beside you, his back against the wall. "Dad _suddenly_ wanted to talk."

You shuffle a little closer to him, so that your shoulders touch, and also his bare knee, bermuda shorts for the win. "Huh. About?"

"I don't even know." Karkat makes a baffled, frowning face. "Whether I was... defending myself? Against what, I have no idea. He was making no sense!"

You stare at him in abject, horrified fascination. "Was it. Was it about _protection_."

Karkat blinks at you. "Hm? Oh, maybe. Anyway since he sounded kind of worried I just said yes and then he finally dropped it and let me go. Or maybe his cake really _was_ burning," he adds with a touch of cynicism. "And also I'm the Empress of the High Seas."

"Your Highness," you mumble. "Oh god."

"Whoa there, I know I'm epic levels of magnificent and am in fact your creator, but let's not get into any worship play just yet -- um. Byrd? Are you okay?"

You pull the blanket over your head and curl up, and make a sound half-whine and half-demented laughter against your knees.

"Byrd? Hey. Hey! Talk to me or I'm asking John."

The next sound you make could be best transcribed as _eeeehrrfhahaha_.

His hand is on your shoulder, and he shakes you, tries to unfold you. When you peek out of the blankets he's leaning forward on his knees to peer at you and making his _what the fuck how dare you make zero sense you fucking alien_ face. His nose is all scrunched up.

You giggle in his face, and allow him to unfold you. You're red to the tips of your ears, but dragging it out won't make it any easier, so.

"Yeah, so, 'protection' is a polite euphemism for those little latex pockets we wrap around our mating parts to avoid accidental babies and sex diseases."

Karkat stares at you with slowly mounting horror, and then buries his face in both hands and groans like a wounded rhino.

"But hey, I'll be your babydaddy anytime, darling. Let us proceed with the impregnation. You will carry the prettiest grubling in your tummy--"

"Are you _trying_ to get banned from my crotch for the next eon?!"

You grin at him. "Impre _gnaaa_ tion."

"Fwarhg!" He recoils like a cat being spritzed -- then he decaptchalogues an avalanche of pillows, grabs one by the corner, and thwaps you right in the head. "I should leave you and your hideous crotch goblins right n--" and then he starts laughing too, fighting not to and laughing anyway, incredulous and horrified.

You waggle your eyebrows in triumph. He thwaps you a second time. Then he shoves the pillow at your chest -- you grab it without thinking -- and starts shoveling the rest all around you.

"I should leave and never let you put a single gross alien finger on me ever again -- you and your goddamn nook parasites -- lift your ass, have you never been on a proper pile -- go make a pass at freaking _Sollux_ or _Aradia_ if I ever want anything but my hand -- my _entirely safe_ hand! You humans are the grossest, freakiest horror show I've ever--"

He's on his knees with his weight on his hands and the hands on a slippery pile of pillows, so it's pretty easy to unbalance him so that he slips and sprawls in your lap. His upper body and face end up pressed to your hips and stomach; rather than breaking his back, you let yourself slide down the wall and onto the pillows pile, which immediately tries to bury you.

"Hey there," you say suavely.

He groans and headbutts you in the stomach. Oof.

Then he looks up and sighs, and crosses his hands over your stomach for his chin to rest on. "Hey there."

You can't help crooking him a little smile. He apparently can't help giving it back. Your organs do a little interpretative dance; Ode to Butterflies or something.

"... Hey."

He huffs out a silent laugh. "What brings you here, Mister Strider?"

The way he says it, it sounds like a quote from a movie. It's so cliche it could be a quote from any of a hundred of them, discounting the troll ones you haven't seen. "Lured in by a dork and his dorky wiles," you say, since you can't quote back.

Um, not that you would. It's too dorky. Yeah. Uh huh.

Fuck but it feels nice to have him pressed against you like this. You shift your weight a tiny little bit, trying to be stealthy but seriously how do you do stealthy with a guy who's pretty much got his ribs welded to your belly.

"Don't bother," Karkat tells you dryly. "Your mystery anatomy is prodding at my absence of gills. That kinky bastard."

"Wow, I'm kinda crushed. You bring up gills-fucking and deny me in a single sentence. My perfect kink, my forever gill -- oof."

Yeah, so he got you in the face with a pillow. You captchalogue your shades before they can break and pout at him.

"No, seriously, that's cruel. I'm sad now. Sad and wilted."

Karkat gives your hips a pointed look. "If that's the wilted state I wonder that more of you guys don't just think dirty thoughts when they need an ice pick."

You sporfle, cheeks warm and dick quickly going from _hmm yes_ to _hfff hello_. "Oh my god, Karkat, you can't compare my dick to an ice pick, the beast will rampage if you flatter it too much, it'll be like, pchoo--"

"Yeah, I was kidding, your ego is the perfect toy. Drop your pants and show me your wild tube-beast."

Karkat tucks his clawed fingertips in your waistband and you go stiff all over, but he doesn't pull; he just looks up at your face and he looks a little impatient, and a little nervous too behind the bluster.

"... Unless you want me to go first. That's -- or maybe more makeouts first, that'd be fine, I--"

Awgh, and now he's all unsure.

You strain your abs holding up your upper body as you reach for his face, cup his cheek. You trace the curve of his ear and you give him a tiny smile, and rock up your hips.

"Yeah, okay. Take my pants off, you big stud."

It's a pretty bumbling affair. He has to sit back up and you have to wriggle before your shorts will get anywhere. Then your underwear tries to escape with it, only the waistband gets caught on your dick. You grunt before you can close your teeth on it.

Karkat is sitting there between your legs and looking at suddenly a tent. Yeah, okay, sure. You throw your forearm across your eyes and fall back into the pillows. "Anytime you're ready for the rest of the great depantsing."

It sounds a little sarcastic and maybe not quite truthful despite your best attempt (you can't look at his face, what if he laughs, is disgusted, wonders how the fuck you handle it in anything approaching a sexy way--)

He takes in a short breath through his nose, like he needs to brace, and lifts the waistband away from your dick with two fingers. It bobs back down, bounces off your belly -- nope, still angling kind of up. It's like your beef cigar is going _nooo, we're not sleepy, fuck the police_.

Okay, you should maybe not start imagining you dick's dialogue. That's, uh. Maybe too much distraction right now. You make yourself look up from it, look at Karkat's face.

One of his eyebrows is a little up. Otherwise he's looking neutral, mouth closed but not pinched, dark eyebrows at rest, black hair falling tousled over and between his eyes.

Damn, your boyfriend is hot. It's oddly surprising, even though it's not like it's the first time you notice.

When he reaches doubtfully to tug at a pubic curl, you start snickering despite yourself.

"You told me it was curly, but _damn_. It's less weird than I expected though -- I mean. You've got these little hairs pretty much everywhere else, it's not like... I should probably shut the fuck up."

"You should keep petting my pocket sheep, bro." You smirk, and then hesitate. "Um, I mean, if you wanna."

He snorts at you, but after that he does work the tip of his fingers into the hair around the base of your dick, and -- wow. It feels... It feels nice. A fucking tease, so close to your shaft but not touching, but his fingers are warm and _someone else is touching your crotch area_.

Score.

You settle down into the pillows, eyes at half-mast and dick hella higher than that. It's the slow burn kind of arousal, and you're not about to ask Karkat to get you off right the hell now anyway, you can wait, you'd rather wait -- you're still too nervous to let it get farther.

Then he pokes you in the balls with the smooth top curve of his nail and you burst out laughing, because _his face_.

"Holy hell why is it jiggly. And floppy and --" He slips a finger underneath your sac and lets it drop, and you smother another nasal, high-pitched shriek of laughter. "I swear to god the sound effect for that was _slop_."

"Oh god I need to draw a comic," you choke out. "Just for that -- just for that. _Slop_. Jegus that's beautiful-- _pfffffrrr_."

He's looking up at you with his mouth pinched and still smiling despite his best attempts, face reddish, rueful. "Yeah, sorry, your junk is ridiculous."

"Your _face_ is ridiculous." You curl your toes into the pillows.

"The shaft part is kind of alright," he says with his voice a little low and not half as dismissive as the words should be, "but whose bright idea was it to add this floppy hanging thing, seriously."

He's rubbing the pad of his thumb against your sac, back and forth, so light it almost tickles.

"Mngh. I wonder. Anyway it's -- pretty sensitive, so no rough handling of the goods please, and yeah I don't need to tell you no claws, but no claws. Zero claws. None of the claws--"

"Byrd," Karkat says with a sigh. "I do have a working sense of touch and I can feel exactly how thick the skin here _isn't_ , and I'm also not a dumb rakefucker, and I -- I _trimmed them_ , okay?"

He looks away from you, face heating up, like juggling your balls was only a little awkward but mentioning he sanded his murder implements smooth is too much somehow. Trolls are weird. Also hilarious.

They still _look_ pointy at first glance, but when you squint at the hand he left on your thigh you notice that yeah, they're not needle-tipped any longer. Still a little bit stabby but... yeah. "D'aw. Thanks, man. My boy-cooch appreciates it."

"What the fuck is a cooch and where is it," he says with a sigh, like he already anticipates the bullshit. You can't help chuckling.

He's handling your junk, though, so you feel like being nice. "It's slang for female genitals that I don't actually have, sorry to disappoint."

"I'll live so long as you don't tell me what I'm missing," Karkat replies philosophically, and runs the back of his fingers along your sac.

Which still feels kind of nice, but is also so bizarre that you end up snickering again. Umm.

Karkat pushes himself up on his hands, sits on his hip between your knees. He's frowning a little, the worried one. "Okay, you've used up about half of your monthly laugh quota in the last fifteen minutes, what's up?"

Haha welp. Ha. "Nothing?"

He frowns at you some more, and then he shuffles up your body and lowers himself onto his side in the cushions. You don't get why your face is so warm, seriously the heating must be doing strange things. Maybe the boat turned and now the wall you're against is in sunlight. Yeah, you buy that one.

"You, uh, maybe want to cuddle a bit?" he suggests, eyebrows furrowed. "I guess we could do that. Fuck."

You give in and turn on your side to face him, wriggle closer -- then pause to tug your underwear back up. You're kind of leaning your weight on both underwear and elbow, though, so it's not happening, and eventually you start laughing again and grab a fucking pillow and pull it up it over your crotch and press your face into the pillows underneath.

"I'm going to take that as 'cuddle is a go'," Karkat says oddly cautiously, and drapes an arm around your ribcage. A Victorian father watching his daughter be handled like that would find it perfectly proper.

"Awgh, sorry, I don't know why the fuck it's even funny at all. It's all just so stupid. My ass is mooning the wall and I'm goosing a pillow, I mean. Fuckin' lame."

He huffs against your hair. You burrow a little closer to him, let him pet the back of your head all slow and nice. "How do you think I felt handling your tools? It was like I was a suspicious housekeeper at the market and you were produce of dubious freshness."

You snort against his breastbone, eyes closed. "Hey, my pickle is the freshest pickle in the country, okay. No mushiness here."

His hand slides down the back of your neck, to your shoulder, your shoulder blade, fingers gliding against the scars where you used to have wings. (The Game could have taken them off clean, you got no scar where your sprite tail used to start, but it's a fucking jerk so it made sure you came out with your very own Remember When tag. So fuckin' thoughtful.) His hand stops at the small of your back and you get tingles up your spine, and down it as well, from the anticipation.

"And how fresh are these buns, then," Karkat says, and then ruins it by snort-groaning like he can't believe that came out of his mouth.

"We're the lamest idiots ever," you conclude with a chuckling sigh. "... And you can grope if you wanna. I guess. That'd be okay."

Karkat leans back a bit to stare at you dubiously. "Your enthusiasm is the sexiest thing. No but if you want to shelve it and try again later...?"

The way he trails off, half-relieved and half-kid who got a single sock for Christmas... "Naw. I'm good. Just if we can maybe kiss a little first. Or something. _Urgh_. Get a load of this tool. I'm where the sexy goes to die."

You can feel him smiling against your forehead. You tilt your face up, aware that you're blushing like a moron, but you want to see that smile on him; you catch a glimpse -- soft, _fond_ \-- and then the two of you are kissing, slow and patient. You don't stop being aware of the ridiculousness of your underwear's location -- half under your ass, and giving your balls a lift -- but Karkat doesn't stop kissing you even as he presses against your chest.

He rolls until he's half on top of you, and you try to slide your arm around his waist and oh, right, that's the stump. You yank it back, laugh it off. "Okay, babe, you're on my arm, I just--"

Okay, he can also get right on top of you, that also does the trick.

You wind your arm around his waist, groan quietly when he sighs into your mouth, when he nips your lower lip and then presses a wet kiss to it. You don't even mean to roll your hips, to rock under him but it just happens; you want to move, it feels good to move, and he shivers and presses down on you right back.

Of course, there's a pillow in the way. Still, Mr. Happy is perking up again. Magic.

"So... Show and tell over for today?" Karkat asks, his cheek pressed against yours. His skin is so damn soft, in a not really human way. You mouth at his bangs, fallen across your nose and lips. "Or did you still want to see... I mean, I -- I'd show you, it's fair and all and _stop_ slobbering on my hair, I'm trying to be serious, you weirdo."

Um. Whoops. "Yeah, sorry that preening you is a messy thing, okay, I don't have a beak, it's a tragic handicap."

Karkat gives you a worried, unsure look, like he's trying to tell himself you're bullshitting but at the same time he can't help but worry that you mean it.

"... Just kidding. And um. I'd still be interested in -- in knowing what's up down there, I just. Show and tell was perhaps not the most appropriate format. Shit, I should have looked at weird troll porn, I _knew_ we should have let Gamzee access the porn hub, I bet he has a ton, looks like the kind of guy who does, I missed a metric fuckton of trolls fucking there, _how could I have_. I was remiss, mea culpa. ... That reminds me I haven't seen the porn hub around even a little bit in like-- mmh."

"Whaddya know, it works," Karkat comments before kissing you again. He's smirking against your mouth, the dick.

You grumble even as you nibble on his lips. When he does the same back to you, his bear trap maw feels ridiculously nice with all those little pointy tips, almost dangerous but not quite getting there.

Your hand travels down, rucking up his shirt and fetching up against his waistband, toying with it, and you feel silly and coy doing it but for all your talk you're feeling weird about just... going for it. And then he sits up without warning and you snatch your hand back by pure reflex.

He pauses in the middle of taking off his shirt to blink at you; you try to stop looking guilty.

"It's a good thing I knew better than to count on a smooth and sexy first time," he says with a sigh, discarding his shirt. You do like his chest, it's nicely toned for all that the muscles are not quite where you expected them. "But the heights of awkward this is reaching are starting to be pretty impressive, I must admit. We're going to need breathing apparatuses soonish at this rate. Perhaps weighted belts to keep from drifting off into space."

"... You know what we could do?" you say, a knee casually up to offer some mock-up of camouflage to your crotch. "We could pack it all back up and cyber."

He falls into the pillows face first at your side, groaning, mutters, "I'm actually fucking tempted."

You join him in sighing sadly. Goddamn, this is just plain not fair. Here you were fretting about being cockblocked by parents or siblings or random _pirates_ , and it turns out you shouldn't have worried! You're awesome at cockblocking yourselves.

He has a nice back. You think about touching it. Maybe he'd like it. Maybe he's on the wrong side to be in reach and you'd have to squirm or sit up and all the smooth and the intimacy would be gone.

"... What was I doing the last time I turned you on? I mean, like, not in the tub but... You know, that time you pinned me to the wall and-- maybe you should think about that. "

Karkat lets his forehead flop back onto the pillows. "You'd just kissed Dave."

"...Okay, don't think about that."

The both of you start giggling at the same time. "Too late," he tells you, eyes gleaming. "You can think about me and another Karkat if you want. Or Kankri--"

"Oh _fuck_ no, are you trying to wilt me forever," you protest, and roll on top of him. You brace your stump on his shoulder blade to keep him down (it's _odd_ , Jesus, there should be more of your arm than that) and ruffle his hair viciously. He rears up, rolls, and you try to straddle him and mostly manage until the both of you roll off the cushions and onto cold floor.

"Don't kinkshame, Byrd, for shame, I am very disappointed at your lack of -- mrgpgh!"

Ha! You can do the 'kissing to shut him up' thing too.

You pour yourself on top of him, make yourself heavy and unmovable on him, and kiss your slow, insistent way deep into his mouth. He tries to squirm for all of five seconds before he's melting under you, making a soft breathy noise that's almost like the offspring of a moan and a purring cat.

Then you break the kiss for barely three seconds for the purpose of changing angles, and Karkat smirk-purrs in your face, "You might _trigger someone_."

Okay, it's war.

The pillows end up all over the place, kicked under the boat and into corners and probably in full view of the rest of the room, and you don't even care. Your underwear is still stuck mid-thigh and do you care about that either? Nope. You're trying to pin him down to administer his well-deserved beating (with your mouth probably.)

The issue is he's a fun-sized brick wall.

He ends up on top, which is grievously unfair.

His hair is a black dandelion of feral wildness, hiding most of his horns, licking at his cheeks. His lip is a little curled up to bare a row of white, pointy little fangs, but his eyes are laughing. He's... He's kind of fucking gorgeous, actually.

Fuck. Yeah. Your boyfriend is hot. It really wasn't a bad plan to offer mackings, that time back when.

"Surrender?"

"Haha it's funny because I'm raising the white flag right under your ass," you blurt out, and immediately turn a fetching crimson. "Oh fuck. I'm never not gonna ruin things. I'll die a virgin and Dave will laugh at me. Mostly because Terezi will have gagged him first 'cause that broad plans ahead like that--"

He rocks on your lap, tentative, and you lock up all over.

Shit. Okay. Operation Get Your Mack On is back on track.

"Listen, I'm not opposed to just shooting the shit and kissing, that's fine," he says, soft and careful, but the way he watches you is a little -- a little intense, and you. Oh. "So if you'd rather not try again today--"

" _No holy fuck stay on my crotch please._ "

You clench your hand on his thigh, and feel silly and desperate.

His eyes go hooded and he leans in, his hair bobbing over your face, tickling your forehead, and he kisses you, but you're a bit more concerned with the way he shuffles his weight over your dick. It's -- distracting.

And then he goes up on his knees and tucks his thumbs in his waistband. You're breathless with staring -- those stupid bermuda shorts, you don't even know if he's got anything underneath, and your own bare dick rising up under it, listing toward his thigh, though less and less as the seconds tick by.

... The seconds tick by and he's not... lowering it. You tear your eyes away from his crotch, to his face.

"...You okay?"

"Just trying to decide if I should ask you if you want to take a look or just do it but then I got stuck on whether that'd wilt you again and. _Fuck_. It was dumb. I am dumb."

Oh, man, his hands are shaking a little. You rest your hand on his thigh, rub a circle with your thumb. "You know we don't gotta have the full sex today, right? I didn't even plan for that, just for -- show and tell. Some petting. Probably handjobs, yeah. Would it, would it make you feel better if we--"

"Yeah. Okay. No full sex. Handjobs are fine. I don't even know if you can put your bulge in me without injury."

"Sounds like a plan," you say without even really thinking about it, because he's finally lowering his shorts and _oh_.

First you see a weird... bulging area, kind of a really fat unipussy -- with, Jesus it looks like armadillo plating -- and then the surprise springs out of the box.

... Oookay, tentadick is a go.

You reach out, hover your hand nearby; he gives a tight nod, mouth pinched flat.

You tuck a cautious finger at the edge of the plates and tug it back down and it lashes like the tail of an annoyed cat (misses your wrist, which isn't bad because you might perhaps have jerked your hand free on instinct otherwise and, well, it might have hurt. As it is, you still twitch a bit.)

You touch the edge of the plates and they feel more like the rough skin at the bottom of someone's feet. Huh. "... Dude, you've got armored dick?" Only on top, mind, and only for a couple of inches, but wow, what.

"You've got hanging bags of please-knee-me-here," Karkat replies tightly, and then relents. "It's for, when it's ... folded back in, deflated, kind of? Why did you think we called it the bone bulge, I mean obviously it's not bone but--"

"So if I kneed you it wouldn't hurt?"

"... It _would_ still hurt."

"Hah."

"On the upside," he says, growling quietly, his hot breath caressing your face, "I'm told it feels pretty fucking great against the edge of your hole when you're taking it to the root."

... Okay, one thing you did not need to have thoughts about: having this rampaging trouser snake stuffed up your asshole. You've touched yourself back there, some, you've -- but when it's not handjobs or blowjobs most of your daydreams are about you sticking it in, and it's kind of... whoa, when you contemplate it happening for real, instead of for a joke, or a wild fantasy? Kinky.

Plus the rough, tough skin there might be nice against labia, or a clit, but you don't have any of those, and your man-rosebud is probably a bit more delicate. Okay, what do you know, but...

"You're blushing again," Karkat says, smug and purring, and kisses your jaw lightly.

"You _should_ be blushing, oh my little Fluthlu, that's my _backdoor_ you're hinting about, and--"

Oh hell, you can't even joke.

"Can we. Like. Not mention it again today. I need. Um."

"Yeah, sure," Karkat replies gently, and kisses your cheekbone, your fluttering eyelid. "Shit but you're cute, this is a travesty."

You completely pout back, without even goddamn meaning to. "Not."

"I'm swooning. What is this devilry. Who said a Strider could be --"

He's purring and _purring_ , going quiet, going so intimate it burns -- and however much he means it, saying it out loud? You know he's having you on at least a little bit. "Karkat I swear to God--"

" _Sweet_."

"I'm not--"

"Precious--"

"I will punt you in themmmhph."

You kiss back sulkily, which means with toothy little nibbles and after that you get distracted by the full body contact going on between the two of you.

Shit. Junk touching. You could swear there are sparks going all up your back, pooling between your hips, you could power a series of light bulbs with the crackling intensity gathering there. You're not too sure what he's doing with his junk but he's -- there is. Touching. Rubbing. Pressure, his hips pushing tight, and you lift up right back.

Your dick is a fucking nightlight at this point, hell it's a goddamn lighthouse.

"Uhm," he mumbles suavely right into your mouth. "Feels good --"

"Mmh."

"--But I feel fucking stupid wearing my underwear around my knees."

Snort. He pulls back to give you a mildly betrayed look, and then you both do the no I'm not laughing face. He rolls off you to kick off his shorts and you groan, sit up to pull your underwear all the way off.

Wow. Mutual nakedness. You regret the ceiling lights now. It'd be better if you were in the dark. Maybe not total darkness but... A little shadow. That'd be nice. These are white halogen tubes and it's hella harsh on the complexion of your much-maligned balls.

You steal looks like there's going to be a worldwide shortage of looks soonish and you've got to grab as many as you can, and _damn_. He's nice to look at, and he's _right there in touching range_.

You touch him. You put your hand on his side and feel very daring, and he makes a little noise that zings straight to you crotch; you can feel your heartbeat in your belly, your dick is borderline swaying with it.

He takes your hand and guides it down, and you stare.

"Boneshield," he says, trying for pedantic and landing on buzzy, nervous, intimate. "You can press down here, it can take it. The bulge proper. Squeeze -- hff, yeah -- stop. Like that. Release. Again."

"Choking the anaconda," you mumble, your eyes transfixed by your fingers wrapped around his alien dick. You _think_ he rolls his eyes, but you don't glance up to check.

"This furrow -- fingertips, the pads, yes -- lightly, oh fuck. Is, is to guide your partner's bulge down -- sensitive there, more as we go..."

It starts in the lower third of his... bulge, pretty much, and it's a little damp and gets damper as you go and you can't quite see from this angle, sitting by his waist, but then your fingers slip ahead faster than you planned and holy shit, he's wet, he's got a --

"And," Karkat says, breathing hard, but proudly, "that's my nook. Claw me up -- and your stupid balls get it."

Oh. Oh, it's all soft and slick inside -- you don't dare to do more than dip in to the first knuckle, though considering the size of his dingalong he could probably accommodate it. But.

So _hot_ inside. Burningly so.

"Internal -- release -- is harder than, than external -- fingers are sometimes -- not long enough, _crook them_ \--"

You obey; his legs kick a little. Your throat is locked tight, it's hard to breathe. You really, really miss having a second hand right now because it would be jerking your love rod at supersonic speeds.

"Hff," he says in a pretty 'yeah okay that hit the spot' way, and blinks up at you like an owl that's wondering why you're on its doorstep.

Wow is your mouth dry. "You uh, want fingerfucked, bro? I can do that, like -- I can do that."

"Nmh. No, I --" Is he blushing? Mad cute. "I'd rather do that with your bulge first. But not today because we _said_ today was hands only and also there's a host of psychological and sociological baggage about penetrative acts that I don't feel like getting into just now when you _still have your fingers in my nook_ \-- I didn't tell you to take them out!"

You pinch your lips together and eye your hand, which has somehow teleported up to your side, shoulder-height, and whose fingers are coated in translucent pink. "You, uh, want me to put them back in?"

Karkat stares flatly at you for two seconds and then cracks up.

Then he rolls on top of you and pushes you flat on your back, and sees about attacking your neck with burning, biting kisses.

He settles between your thighs and you feel his tentadick push and pulse against your balls -- erk, ticklish-weird -- the bottom of your shaft, it slides up against you and your toes curl. Your hand burrows in the thick hair at the back of Karkat's head and you mouth blindly at his ear, his temple, rocking under him.

He straddles your thigh and you whine, feeling the way his muscles tense on yours, clamping down, oh shit, he's wet. Your hips become a ship in a storm, rolling frantically for more and you don't know where this gripping need came from, this hunger clutching a fistful of your guts and tugging you along.

It's good and it's great and he's kissing your neck now, your collarbone -- warmth and a rush of tingles, his breath on your damp skin.

He kisses the keel of your ribs and you flinch, leg coming up; he jerks over you. Body-length friction, it's awesome and you don't want to stop there (you don't want to go down there.) You try to haul him up one-handed.

You lift a knee between his thighs and feel powerful and overwhelmed both as he fucking _grinds_ on it. You kiss his mouth hot and wet, slipping an arm around to his front -- trying to, his stupid arm is in the way, over or under? Shit, you need -- oh, he shifted, good. Your hand feels between your two bellies for your dick, for his, for soft-skinned taut flesh to caress and pump. You gather the two of you in your hand, as much as you can; your wrist gets grabbed, squeezed by his fucking bulge, like it won't release your hand until you've damn well done your sexual duty.

You're not sure it's your godlike dexterity that does it, you're mostly trying to keep a firm grip the way he told you to while you're being distracted by his compact weight and the furnace heat of his mouth on your skin and the mounting pleasure in your crotch. You feel his nails tighten, on your side and on your shoulder, the lamed one, and you feel pressure, the thin bright pain of nails. You get a bare half-second to visualize the needlepoint of his claws pre-trimming punching through your skin and then his breath stops and he shudders from head to toe, forehead pressed to your clavicle.

Your hand is slick with thick heat, your thigh is _dripping_. You nudge him with your knee to the seat of his pants and he gasps and just about snaps your leg off clamping down on it, but then he rolls off on your lamed side.

You don't even spare a second to look, you're closing a hand around yourself and giving yourself the thirstiest wank in the world, fisting at your dick rough and fast with a hand full of his spunk.

His hand lands on yours as you finish, feeling how tense your tendons are, your muscles, following, like he wants to learn your rhythms straight from you.

Inch by inch you go loose in the pillows, head falling back, throat exposed, like the longer your throat is and the better you can breathe, the cooler the air is. Your heart is still thundering away and rocking your whole chest cavity, your skin throwing off sparks of 'feels good' even where nothing is touching you at all. You're a live wire, slow and reluctant to go dark.

"... You know what the most awesome thing about this is," Karkat says after a minute of quiet cuddling, breathing together.

"Mm?"

"There's _room for improvement_."

You blink at him, and then make a noise somewhat like _snerrfle_. "Wow yeah okay that's motivating. You're so lucky I know what you mean."

You kiss his face. It's ridiculous how much you like him right now, all bright under your breastbone and trying to tug the corners of your mouth up, and you're pretty sure no amount of effort is going to make your eyes stop curving up like little happy half-moons. It's obvious now from how relieved you are; you were scared that this thing building up between you would fizzle out and you'd be stuck with a boyfriend you feel no kind of zing about -- and _after_ you've fucked him, which would have been the heights of douche.

"Think about it," he says, a bit dreamily. "This was a _first try_. A pretty fumbling one even. It was great. You're great. Endorphins are ginormous and also spectacular. Fantabulous."

"... Dude, I'm seduced already, stop trying to talk my little soldier back up."

A flash of bright, hungry grin, fangs and all. Your belly goes _ping!_ "Why not?"

"It'll die trying, is why." Urgh. You make a sad face. "Refractory period's a bitch, my bad. But, um." You sneak a totally discreet look down his body. His tentadick has gone back to wherever it came from and you missed the magic trick. Boo. At least it looks like he's just as ready as you are for an encore. "Guess I could give you a handjob or something if you... but you're not. Fuck, there's a cushion _on the boat_."

He cranes his neck. "Huh, so there is. Did you kick it up there?"

"Man, I have _no_ idea."

He settles back against your side; you ooze, partially on cushions haphazardly stuck under your body and partially on the cold hard floor, which feels pretty damn nice on your heated skin right now.

His gray, square hand is on your chest, covering the sword slot scar. He nuzzles at your stump, eyes closed.

You flinch when you feel his lips.

"Mnh?" he says, eyes closed. You've gone tense. You try to relax but it twangs weird.

You just... You'll show it, fuck yes, _I've got to live with it, you guys can deal with_ _ **looking**_ _at it_.

Touching it -- so casual, too, just as tender and offhanded as if this were any other non-maimed part of you...

"... Byrd, what."

"Nothing," you say, but your voice goes strangled when he nuzzles closer in. His chin is pressed right up to the scar tissue on the underside, you're feeling him with a part of your body that used to be _inside_.

Your guts twist in on themselves like a bunch of ashamed snakes. The scar is clean and pretty neat as those go but it's. It's shiny and hard and not like real skin, normal skin, the color is off and too pink and it draws in in some places from the muscle atrophying underneath and.

You wish he were on your other side.

He doesn't even bother to open his eyes, voice oddly relaxed. "Don't make me pap your face because I don't even care that it'd be scandalous after we just rutted like a pair of adolescent wildebeest, I will do it. You are not ruining this retroactively."

"You've got your _face_ in my _stump_ , buddy."

He frowns a little bit; still doesn't open his eyes. "... Yeah? Why is it a problem, does it still hurt?"

"...No."

"Phantom limb?"

"No, it's just _weird_ , okay." Argh. You are ruining this retroactively. Good fucking going, Byrd Sprite Strider. "Like. Who wants to be touching that shit. Is all."

"S'not like you're still oozing green pus, you talking pustule on the ass of the universe." He cracks an eye open. "Don't know what you've got against it, it's not _very_ grisly but it's still pretty respectable."

You blink. "Grisly is good?"

He blinks. "Duh? I mean, what's good about a thin little line that you might as well have given yourself with the razor you use on your own damn hair? Wow, good job, nicked yourself shaving, I bet it bled a whole twenty seconds, _that's_ terrifying."

... _Trolls_. You chuckle, once, incredulously. "Yeah, see, humans think scars are gross and scary. Holes. Missing chunks. Deformities. _Ugh_."

"I keep thinking I've found out everything weird and strange about your squishy weakling species, and then a weirder thing reveals itself, opening up a new branch of weird that comes in palettes ranging from 'what the fuck why' to 'no that's too dumb'," he muses, one eyebrow quirked up doubtfully. "Smooth like a newly pupated grub is _creepy_. Nothing ever happened in your life? Wow, lucky, you're gonna die the second someone trips you on a flat road."

You keep staring at him. He sighs, and pushes himself up on his elbows, abandoning the scar on your chest, so he can look down at your face.

"Byrd, you dumb _weenie_ , scars tell everyone 'see the shit I survived? It was very bad and you should pity me for the pain I endured, and also _fear me_ because I kicked the ass of the last thing that had the presumption to try it until it ran sobbing for its lusus, and then I walked it right off.' If we dropped you and Dave on Alternia, you guys would... Well, get killed in about a short day because aliens, actually, but in the meantime _you'd have gotten laid_. Dave would still be wanking his sword handle and looking confused."

"That is _definitely_ not what it means to an Earthling," you say, choking on an unexpected laugh. Hell, you're pretty sure that a significant chunk of the States' bureaucracy thinks that what it means is you're shit at dodging Bro's sword during strifing lessons. It's not what actually happened, so you don't actually care.

His eyes have gone all narrow and intense. Fuck but he's hot. Impressive, too, you can just about imagine him once he has grown into it a bit and wow yes, get out of his way. You... kind of like that he's making that face on your behalf.

"It's what it means to me, so who fucking gives a single flicked crap fleck about the opinions of a herd of squeamish nook-discharge clumps with delusions of sentience."

"Aye-aye, boss," you say, and give him a smile, small and fond. "Officially ready to flaunt the shit out of my stripes."

A thought crosses your mind as you're raising your hand to touch his cheek.

"... Does it mean getting a prosthesis is the equivalent of wearing birth control nerd glasses and suspenders?"

He leans down to headbutt you almost gently in the chin. "A prosthetic arm still means you got it chopped off at some point, and _then_ you got a new one wired in. I guess you guys would have access to better anesthetics..." he adds, musing. "It'd get you more caliginous attention, though. Shit, if the shoulder joint is solid enough that it won't tear out with hard use then you'd pretty much come with permanent knuckle dusters."

You smother a giggle, imagining yourself with spikes on your knuckles -- hey, might as well go for broke, why not Wolverine claws? Overcompensating much? But man, you think over the trepidation, the traces of no-that's-gross-hide-it, it _might_ be kind of sweet. You've got no clue how to use a weapon like that and your hand-to-hand relies on being fast and twisty, not on throwing a straight punch in a way that would knock any motherfucker to the ground. You don't have the weight or the muscle mass for it, for one.

A metal arm would still hurt, catching it in the face.

Human prostheses aren't quite there yet, but...

"Are you thinking of getting one?" Karkat asks you as he burrows back down against your shoulder. This time, you let him.

"No," you say, and then "Yes. Maybe."

He doesn't push -- too sated for it, maybe -- doesn't ask what changed your mind or why you didn't before or why now. He just sighs and nuzzles you again and says, "I'm so fucking glad you're the official designated handler of gross laundry. We ruined the _shit_ out of my poor pillows."

You gaze around at the scattered pile, lips pinched, and then you say, "I think I'm about to become the official designated launcher of pillows into the sea."

He shoves you. You shove back. You end up wrestling until the dried spunk gets too tacky and gross and the both of you have to sneak back to the empty crew quarters and take chastely separate, very smug showers.


	19. Chapter 19: Days twenty-seven to thirty

It's not easy to make yourself ask Dirk, because the last time he offered you just about bit his face off. You remember how bothered it got you to fake normal so people would be spared even the thought of your gross mutilation.

You might be feeling less kneejerk fuck-off these days, but if you're gonna get a roboarm, you still want it to _look_ roboty. Fuck that flesh glove trickery, it'll be funnier having people stare at your rad wires and bearings and wonder if you're an expat from the year 2350.

Anyway you are still mellow as fuck over getting sort of laid, and -- well, it's just past five PM, you're not gonna have dinner for a while, and Karkat promised Gamzee some moirail time. One last kiss and you're alone on the last level of the ship, serene and pleased, and the machine room is right there.

... You might be engaging yourself down a path you'll regret when you come down from the endorphins, actually.

\-- truncatedGrip [TG] started trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --

TG: kanaya hey   
TG: kanaya   
TG: kanaya   
TG: kanaya   
TG: kanaya   
TG: kannye yo hi   
TG: ka-nanana, nanana, nanananananana   
GA: My Apologies I Was Sunbathing   
GA: And Congratulations My Name Doesnt Read Like A Real Word Anymore   
TG: ding ding ding goal achieved ten points to me   
GA: Is There Anything You Actually Wanted To Talk About    
GA: Because The Sun Is Very Nice And So Is Mrs Lalondes Bathing Suit   
TG: KANAYA NO   
GA: I Believe The Appropriate Response Is Kanaya Yes   
GA: Kanaya Yes   
TG: what about rose man???   
GA: She Thinks Its Funny   
GA: Dont Worry Im Mostly Interested In The Cut Of The Cloth   
TG: ...   
TG: you jerk see if i ever worry about the sanctity of your girlfriendship ever again   
TG: you sound in a good mood did you get laid or what   
TG: cause i did and we should be got laid bros   
TG: or sis however you want   
GA: Dot Dot Dot   
GA: Thank You For This Candid Revelation And No I Didnt   
GA: Today   
TG: yeah rub it in i dont even care anymore well catch up to you two soon    
GA: It Is Merely A Very Nice Feeling To Take In The Suns Rays   
GA: Mrs Lalonde Is Asking Me What I Am Smiling About   
GA: I Suppose I Should Not Tell Her    
GA: ?   
TG: i will throw myself off the boat and swim down to the bottom of the motherfucking ocean if you do but hey follow your heart and no pressure   
GA: :)   
TG: frowny face   
GA: Oh No This Is Terrible How Shall I Smooth That Unsightly Furrow Upon Your Peerless Brow   
TG: sarcasming at me on top of everything wow    
TG: sob sob who could have known kanaya maryam was one of the meanest girls at school   
TG: urgh not to cut this short cause i like shooting the shit with you but    
GA: At Last The Mercenary Purpose Appears   
GA: Okay My Bad Youre Trying To Be Serious Ill Stop   
TG: man considering the amount of shit everyone else gives me over everything ever    
TG: *including the guy im dating flush*   
TG: youre well in the clear   
GA: Im Listening   
TG: see dirk was offering earlier to build me a sweet ass roboarm   
TG: like back when we came out of the game last month    
GA: Thats Nice Of Him   
TG: yeah but i was still kinda bristly over not being a sprite anymore and also being alive which was not as previously planned and   
TG: im not suicidal its just for a while i didnt care a ton if i oopsed   
TG: ok that sounds p suicidal   
TG: um   
TG: im not now it was just the doomed timeline thing   
TG: kanaya?   
TG: i see you typing   
TG: are you erasing and retyping or    
GA: Far From Me To Contradict You But Your Alpha Timeline Twinclone Has Also At Times Shown A Certain Carelessness About His Own Continued Survival And Since We Are Talking Candidly About The Topic I Must Tell You It Distresses Me Somewhat To Think About And It Distressed Rose Immensely Though She Would Never Have Mentioned It Openly As That Might Have Her Break Out In Hives   
GA: Ok Im Done Typing Sorry   
GA: At Any Rate Im Glad To See Youre Aware Of That Tendency   
TG: ... wow i so didnt mean to bring that to the table when i started   
TG: my bad   
TG: like   
TG: seriously didnt mean to be that depressing   
GA: Im Not Depressed And Im Glad You Felt Trusting Enough To Bring It Up With Me Even Casually   
GA: I Wont Let Anyone Read This Dont Worry   
TG: awgh   
TG: thanks girl   
TG: um   
TG: yeah   
GA: Anyway Your Actual Topic   
TG: believe it or not that was just the prologue but anyway    
TG: i started out not wanting a fake arm because you know hey i dont have an arm and i gotta acknowledge so fuck if random strangers make faces at me for making them acknowledge too   
TG: plus current human prostheses arent that advanced really and theyd have like hella bad finger movement i think or even none at all   
TG: ...    
TG: anyway long story short i just got laid and im like fuck yes awesome roboarm but    
TG: a) what if its the endorphins talking and when they go back down i change my mind again   
TG: b) what if dirk changed his mind or is too busy for it or he cant do it after all   
TG: c) what if karkat stops pitying me as much cause im not maimed anymore like srsly we just got started and i feel like our raw sexual attraction could fall flat if someone farts wrong never mind body mods of this extent ???    
GA: Is That All   
TG: dude its plenty!!   
GA: Okay   
GA: a) Get Laid Again   
GA: b) He Will Change It Again And Or Find Some Time For It And Or Will Find Some Way To Achieve Some Measure Of Success Because Hes A Bored Workaholic And Its A Challenge To Overcome   
GA: c) Are You Serious Right Now   
TG: c) ok not very   
GA: Okay Good I Would Have Thwapped You   
GA: Just In Case You Needed It Said Vriska Had A Roboarm   
GA: I Dont Think You Knew Her Much But Lets Just Say If Shed Have Thought It Would Make Her Look More Badass And Appealing She Might Have Cut Off The Second One Too   
GA: You Have Nothing To Fear   
GA: Do You Need More Reassurance Because Im Losing Battery And Would Have To Move To The Plug Near The Wall Which Is In The Shade  
GA: I Will Do It If You Need Me To But It Will Be A Sacrifice  
TG: haha nah stay in the sun and enjoy yourself   
TG: i already owe you one im not gonna owe you two  
TG: shit how did our gossimpchumpage symbol go again i forgot  
TG: consider it typed out  
GA: Consider It Typed Back   
GA: And Now Goodbye Byrd And Good Luck With Dirk   
GA: I Will Expect A Report On That Discussion Later Tonight  
TG: uh oh  
GA: Also On Other Things   
GA: Wink  
TG: haha yeah sure its a date

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] logged out --

... You wonder if you engaged yourself down _another_ path you'll eventually regret. Welp. No, Kanaya knows you're a tool and don't mean it as flirting.

But shit, you were probably totally flirting.

Trolls are weird. But cute.

You go find Dirk.

You find Dirk. He's with Roxy. She's painting his nails. They both stare at you like you interrupted pale makeouts or something. You walk back out.

You play phone games for a half-hour, go to find Dirk again. He's not in the girls' dorm room anymore but in the kitchen with Jane. They're discussing a mystery book about ponies or something. You have alas not read it, so you decline participating, take something you didn't particularly want from the fridge, and abscond again.

A half-hour later and he's with one of the Dads. What is this, Dirk Social Day? Is he gathering all his bonding to a single, shining Wednesday before descending back into his mancave for another year? Huff.

"Yes, Byrd?" the Dad interrupts. You shrug.

"Nah, nothing. Um."

"I was about to start my shift in the engine room," Dirk says, voice bland with the kind of bland that means war zone. "Walk with me, bro?"

"Sure thing," you say, casual down to your toes, and nod politely at the Dad before falling into step with him. You step back inside the ship and toward the spiraling staircase. "Anything you wanted to talk about?"

"Yeah, I wanna talk about what you want to talk about and yet aren't for some reason."

Welp. You hang your head. You're a bit glad he's walking before you. "Okay, I guess I wasn't subtle there."

A snort is your only response.

You... really don't know how to broach it. So you opt for subtlety and grace, and stop a couple feet off the machine room door. "Is your shift starting _now_ , now?"

"... I've got a couple minutes before Bro gets antsy, I guess," Dirk says, and leans his shoulder against the wall of the corridor, arms crossed nonchalantly like hey look at my biceps and my sweet tat and my uncaring bored bastardface.

Does he think you're gonna tell him he's not your real brother, he's adopted, or what? He's so casual-whatever he might as well be snarling.

It's _so_ weird.

So you just shrug and say, "Still wanna make me that roboarm? Because I might want it now."

... Kinda careless for someone asking for such a huge favor. (And he's so braced and locked-up and you're the emotional honesty twin and if hugging Dave freaked him out that badly you wonder how Dirk would react. Might be interesting to know.)

"... Might hella want it actually," you admit, quiet and awkward, and still looking at him.

He doesn't move at all, which is what gives it away -- he's stopped breathing for a beat there.

"So, like, would you please with a bow on top make me a sweet-ass roboarm. I don't even need the loudspeaker and the rappelling line, just working fingers so I can grope my boyfriend's butt, or scratch my balls and type at the same time and things like that."

He keeps saying nothing for another five seconds, and it physically hurts to restrain yourself and leave him some space rather than invade the quiet moment with rambles.

"Well, thanks for telling me about the boyfriend."

"--Wait, you didn't -- oh right, hell, you didn't know -- did you know? I can't keep it fucking straight!"

A faint quirk of his lips, and the line of his shoulders relaxes minutely. "Roxy told me."

"Oh." You frown a little. "The traitorous fiend."

"Actually she just complained about how she couldn't hook Jane up now and would have to find another candidate, but they're rather thin on the ground in the area. It was pretty much you, Karkat, or Gamzee."

"Oh."

"Meanwhile Gamzee's too grungy for Jane, unless she wanted a three-way hatefuck with him and Terezi--"

" _Dirk!_ "

He gives you a thin smirk. Ooooh, that jerk. That's how he wants to play it, huh?

"At any rate, it wasn't too hard to put it together. Congrats, I guess, and now who am I going to hit on? Here I thought the stuff about greedy bisexuals was an urban legend."

Wow, someone is _upset_ he wasn't told. Okay, possibly more 'passingly annoyed' but still. You give him a small, tight smile, and a shrug. "There's still Sollux."

Dirk makes an unconvinced, mostly-faked moue back. "I've heard he's a bag of bones."

"On the upside, kink applications of telekinesis."

"... Huh."

Okay, good on you for derailing him and now you need to stop thinking about the new path you seem to have knocked him onto, whether or not he's playing along to fuck with you.

"So that arm, yay or nay?" You catch yourself shifting your weight from foot to foot, which is a horribly obvious tell and unbefitting of a Strider. You put a stop to it, only to start rolling onto the balls of your feet. Hmrghg.

He's still standing there with his biceps out, his arms crossed. He's... gazing at the floor.

Your stomach falls a little.

"Okay," he says eventually, all at once like he's only concluding the drawn-out argument that was going on inside his head. Then he looks up at you. "Gonna be honest, bro, I might be reaching the edge of my technical expertise here. Perhaps I'm even going to end up stranded in the wilderness miles away from the edge, and there are land sharks about."

You blink. "Huh. But you sounded pretty sure--"

"That was when I still didn't fully appreciate the technical limitations this century is working under, okay?" He rakes a hand through his gelled hair. He doesn't duck his head but his chin dips a bit like he's about to. "Also when I hadn't really figured out you can't just walk into a surgeon's office and slap a metal interface on the table and be all fucking 'take care of the squishy parts for me, I'll pay you well' at them. There's boards for review and approval and those take fuckin' years, and if we're not looking aboveboard for a pro then I don't know who can be trusted to handle the meat side."

You... wow, shit, you're fucking disappointed. Somehow you expected he'd present you with a ready-to-plug motherfucker in under a week.

"Well," he adds, suddenly thoughtful, "that's if we go with a graft-type, but you've still got part of the upper arm, so maybe a sleeve -- it would still need to be bolted to the collarbone if we want it solid, mind, else it'd fly off in a strife, and that's surgical enough I want to consult with an actual surgeon."

"Yeah, okay, sounds fair," you say and try to put on a brave face. No, damn it, you wanted a new arm _now_.

Bluh.

Oh well. It's in progress now, or about to be, it'll happen at some point. Yeah. That.

You think you should go find Karkat after dinner and ask for makeouts to make you feel better after this terrible setback. Yeah, that should fix you.

You're still standing in front of each other in the corridor, and you don't really know what to say or do next, if there's anything left to add. You shrug, wishing you had a pocket for your hand. "Well. Anyway. Thanks for doing it, bro."

"It's a challenge," he says back with a quick, dismissive shrug, and does stick his hands in his pockets, the unfair jerk.

You're about to nod your thanks coolly and walk away when he...

Dirk Strider _actually clears his motherfucking throat_. "Mind if I consult?"

You blink. "A surgeon?"

"No, I mean, closer than..." A deep breath; he squares his shoulders, fixes you with as direct a stare as he's ever give you. "No, what I mean is, do you think I should ask Bro."

Lips pinched, you stare back, and then you say, "Did that hurt to say or."

"Shut your trap if you don't want your new arm to come with a joy buzzer." He huffs, fists planted inside his pockets. "I really hate people putting their noses in my projects, but I figure my project is going to end up your body part and that'd be a stupid thing to fuck up because of some mad case of unchecked hubris."

... Heh.

You step forward into his space, and give his tattooed shoulder as friendly a punch as you can make it without making it, like, a caress or something. No homo, literal bro.

He twitches; you can see him staring at you through the shades, from this close. His eyes are a bit wide.

"Dude, so long as it doesn't electrocute me and actually moves, I'm pretty fine with it being revised, it doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go. Actually we could start with, like, a strap-on, just the struts and shit, see how it handles."

"Huh."

"And yeah, it wouldn't be bad to have Bro along for the ride, if only so he can check how much it fucks with my balance."

"Yeah, that's a concern." Frowning, Dirk nods. "Okay, that is one area where he definitely knows more than I do. Especially about how you're supposed to move. I haven't really made a study of you guys' sweet kata yet."

"The 'yet' really sells it," you say encouragingly. "Subtle creep, very nice."

"... I try, thanks."

You offer your fist for a bunp. He obliges you -- and then he actually honest to god takes a deep breath.

"Hey, Bro!"

Bro emerges from the machine room too fast not to have been standing near the door -- he's got flashstep, but the machines are noisy. He stands in the doorway, rubbing his hands on a rag, looking down at his mini-me. Dirk looks back, neck craned, still mostly facing you.

"I'm gonna build Byrd an arm. Want to double-check my shit?"

He fucking _bluescreens_ when Bro wraps an arm around his shoulders and side-hugs him, frozen like a lump of flesh-toned stone with hella nice deltoids. You don't even know when he'll stop being blindsided by that shit.

Bro releases him without a word. He's smiling at you, just that tiny crooked thing, and suddenly you're not observing Dirk's mental flail with curious detachment, you're mentally flailing right alongside him. Bro isn't allowed to be soft and cuddly, okay? Just too wrong.

"I'm good at welding and shit," he admits to Dirk, still standing almost close enough that their elbows are touching, "but you're gonna have to teach me the higher tech and most of the programming."

Dirk blinks up at him, baffled enough to sound like it. "You don't...?"

"I'm fine with programming shit for the internet, but that's stuff I taught myself in between raising a kid and working like three jobs. Didn't really have time to hone my craft." Bro shrugs, like that's casual and meaningless, just one of those things. "One of my crafts. Sewing was alright in public and didn't explode if I stopped in the middle."

"Alright in public only as long as no one saw the finished product," you reply, pointedly expressionless. Bro waves his hand like that's inconsequential and oh man, you need to not think back trying to remember if anyone at the park ever did notice the dong-nosed puppets or their bulbous, impudent asses. It's thankfully too far back for you to get back more than a vague haze of old swings and skinned knees.

"... Yeah, anyway," Dirk says, tone all business and still staring more toward you than toward Bro. Hah. "I've got blueprints from building my bots, but it's not the same thing as a human-useable prosthesis, and the tech isn't available here. We might want to see if we can gear down."

Bro nods slowly. "Yeah. And maybe ask that kid Sollux, troll tech was more biological, right? Could have ideas."

"... Yeah, point."

One more person on the project, and it won't be long until Roxy and Jade join in. You feel rather smug; they've all been bored, you bet, without something to pour their mad genius into. You're so altruistic. Mmm.

"Okay," Bro says casually, "it's your project, just see me as another pair of hands for you to wield."

You can see on Dirk's face how thrown he is by that. You can also see on Bro's face things Dirk isn't going to know how to read yet -- no, there's no trap, you stupid kid, this is actually important to you so I'mma help you.

It's getting too mushy for you, to be honest. You're gonna start squirming IRL in another three seconds if Bro keeps giving him the same looks he gave you the other day when you had breakfast and discussed pirate things, only _not in private_. "Okay, sounds like you guys have things well in hand, so I'll just check in later, yeah? I gotta get my mack on. Gotta keep the wife satisfied and all. Bye."

"Is the wife John or Karkat," Bro drones, "I always mix that shit up. He complaining about your sweet moves already?"

... Goddamn. "No, Bro, John is the secret lover, _Kanaya_ is the wife." A shrug. You look away. "Karkat's just the boyfriend."

"Love-boyfriend, hate-boyfriend or mild-dislike boyfriend?"

You throw him a sideways glare, and pretend you're not reddening. "Come the fuck on, Bro, like I'd take mild anything."

He and Dirk pinch their lips like you just made a raunchy double-entendre without noticing, and you groan. Those jackasses are just trying to mess with you. It's working, too, damn it.

"Anyway, Kanaya is waiting for me, so. Later." You turn away, and then you hesitate. "And, um. Thanks. Yeah."

You flashstep out of there before they can make it all worse by acknowledging it.

\--

\-- **Day Thirty** \--

"How come it's _raining_ on my goddamn tropical cruise? That's false advertising, okay, what the hell. I was promised a paradisiac vacation full of little umbrellas in drinks and girls in like no clothing fanning my sweating brow."

Dave doesn't miss the sun and its sunburn-giving powers worth a damn; he's grumpy because everyone is crowding around the gaming station on the big-ass giant TV of doom and he's not gonna get a turn for another hour at least, the way it's going. When he tried to take over from John or Jane, Roxy glowered at him, and Terezi laughed in his face.

Still, you kind of agree. You went looking through the crates of stuff from the apartment for like two hours this morning before you found equipment you could use, and now it's too gray to use it. 

The little digital camera swings from its strap at your wrist, and you think that maybe you should just give up and recaptchalogue it. It'd nestle right against the big camera with the real lens and real rolls of film inside and all the little slides and buttons that you can't handle one-handed, never mind with only your left. It's set up for a righty, you don't think you've ever seen a camera that wasn't.

You can't wait for your sweet-ass roboarm, damn it. You've spent so long sulking your tush off about how much you totally didn't want one and wow yeah denial party.

(You wanted your real arm and yeah, it still sucks and the idea of having metal and plastic stuck to you is still _weird_ , it's just that now you're finally ready to go with any arm at all.)

(Okay so confession time, you are sometimes -- at night, or while trying to spar -- still ambivalent about the roboarm. But you figure you'll be waffling about it until you've been wearing it long enough to be used to it, so you might as well get started on wearing it early. ... Or you would if the universe would _cooperate_.)

It's freaking depressing, is what it is. And meanwhile outside the rain keeps pattering nice and steady in between two gusts of sudden wind. 

Dave lets out a theatrical sigh and flops into an armchair sideways, legs draped over an armrest and head hanging off the other side, and makes faces at the ceiling. 

The armchair is all embroidered and fancy-legged and shit, and your twin-clone is in shitty flip-flops and the most garish swim shorts known to humankind. (You can guess who decided what to clad his nubile buttocks with.)

You think maybe two seconds before you flip the digital camera into your palm and turn it on. It chirps as it comes online, but Dave is too busy grumping to react fast enough. You snap a picture.

"Spoiled Brat on Field of Jetset Gold," you intone, and take a picture of his sudden scowl as well.

He doesn't snark back, though, just sighs and deflates, still draped across the arms of his chair. "Mneh."

... Yeah. Sigh. You trudge across the thick carpet to the armchair mirroring Dave's on the other side of the French doors leading to the first level's deck and flop in turn. The double doors to the entertainment room are wide open, and laughter and calls spill out. Terezi and Kanaya are dueling each other with cars and treachery right now; John and Karkat are bickering, offering contradictory advice. Jane is laughing at something.

Jade comes up the staircase, three huge popcorn bowls cradled in her arms, and gives the two of you the eyebrow. "If you want any you're gonna have to come back in!" she says, but she doesn't linger.

Well. It's not what you wanted to do with your afternoon, but it's not like it's going to be bad to spend time with the pack of them. Boyfriend, best friend, sisters and all; could be cool. You sigh again and lean forward to get out of your chair.

"...Hey. Bro."

Huh. Dave isn't looking at you, but it's the kind of not looking that's more because you can't than because you don't feel a need to.

You tilt your head. "Yeah?"

He says nothing for a beat, for two or three, and you watch him, watch the way his mouth pinches flat to say 'bored', and the point of his chin (it looks different in the mirror, it's an angle you can't see yourself from.) His hands (two of them; the nail of his left thumb is cracked. You can almost imagine how it hurts, but not really.)

"Been thinking about it," he says eventually, reluctant and a bit too quiet. 

You don't even know what he means. "Uh?"

"Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff," he grumbles, and lifts his head just high enough to glare, though that doesn't last.

"--Oh." Oh. Yeah. Wow, you'd almost put it out of your mind. You fiddle with the camera in your hand, turn it on to look at the previous pictures. Mutie's head emerging from the leg of your empty boxers, G-cat in filigree against a window looking especially fat, yawning with that fucked-up radioactive maw. A few really bad shots of your cabin's closet-bathroom, when you were still figuring out how to hold the camera (answer is: upside down, and click with the thumb.)

"Mm."

"And you've figured out...?"

"I..." He hesitates. "Did you -- like, did you want it?"

You shrug, snap a picture of the room. The lighting is weak as shit but it's still kind of fun, all the opulence everywhere and the pack of your friends crowded around Mario Kart.

"If I did, what then? You'd let me have it?"

"Yeah," Dave says, not even really hesitating. You weren't expecting that, and you stare at him. He shrugs helplessly. "I still like the concept, I just -- hey, I've got to have more in me than this one story, you get me? No use clinging to it when y-- when other people can -- when they _have_ \-- when. Argh."

You nod. "Yeah."

"It's like -- it's _done_ , you know? There's _movies_. Even if only from Dirk's sylladex anymore." He lifts a hand to wave vaguely in the air, lets it fall across his chest. "I'm kinda bummed I'm never gonna behold the epic merchandizing, but I know it exists. Would have existed. It's pretty cool already. It's..."

"It's enough," you finish for him.

"Yeah." 

He wriggles a bit in his seat, sits straighter, so he can look at you. You rest the camera on your thigh and look back.

"I wanna see what else I've got," Dave says, a bit awkward, a bit unsure -- kind of shy, and you don't know what he's shy of but now you feel shy too, stupid-squirmy and like you're fronting, and badly so, and everyone can tell.

"Yeah, me too," you push out, fingers clenching around the camera, out of sight behind the padded arm of your chair.

"Yeah."

You almost echo another 'yeah' at him, catch yourself just in time, hum an acknowledgement instead.

"... So we lay it to rest?" Dave says. "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, dear Sweet Bro, good Hellacious Jeff."

You nod, thoughtful, gaze down at your hand, curled around the camera on your lap. "You know Jeff hated his full name, you jerk," you say back, out of reflex, but you can't keep it up. "And hey, Other, _Other_ Dave toiled all his life on that shit, he deserves to keep it."

Dave shifts, uncomfortable. You glance at him and his head is bowed; he sighs. "Yeah. I guess goodnight, sweet other Dave -- heh. How'd it go again?" 

"Uh. Something about a prince?"

Dave looks away, like he can't bear to even risk meeting your eyes. "Well then. He was just as much of a knight as we were, so I guess he needs another epitaph."

It hurts, but it's not a bad pain. _We_. _We_ were knights. You never let yourself feel sorry for all the dead Daves back in the day (they were you and you didn't _care_ about you, you'd die as much as needed to protect those who deserved to keep on living.) But now Dave is... Yeah.

Yeah. You can -- you can like that.

You do. It's. Yeah.

You smile at your brother and he twists his mouth in startled distaste, no, hey, don't, and you chuckle and he groans, but then he laughs too, just a breath of a sound, ducking his head so you won't see him smiling back.

"This is gross and disconcerting and needs to be stopped post-haste. Quick, let's talk about boobs."

Snort. "If you start bragging about Terezi's I'm gonna laugh straight in your face. I mean it."

"Hey, her breasts are fine. More than a handful is a waste, I say."

"Uh huh." You briefly consider saying he'd sing another tune if he ever had put his hands on Jade's soft, ample chest pillows, but then you think, hey, Karkat doesn't have any, and you don't mind at all. You nod agreeably. "Okay, sure, I'll accept it. Like, in the spirit of brotherhood and Christmas."

"It's June, you bag of horse dicks."

"Bzzt, wrong brother."

"I'm going to tell on you to Dirk," Rose says from the door. She's smiling at the both of you, amused, and you're pretty sure she wasn't here two seconds ago.

"How'd you know we meant Dirk, are you assuming now, Lalonde, you know what that makes you."

"Well then, I'll just tell on you to Bro." She walks in to join the two of you, sits by Dave on a padded footstool that probably cost twice the price of your old futon back home. "What momentous things are we discussing in this parlor?"

"Parlors have no windows, I'm pretty sure, it's got to be all paisley wallpaper and dark wooden bookcases and shit," you say, looking back at the French doors behind you. 

Dave nods. "Yeah, also more cigar smoke. You got any cigars on you? Pipe? Maybe a nice little blunt at worst, we're not fussy."

Rose laughs at Dave. You take her picture. You think maybe you're gonna embrace your status as the feelings twin and make a series of smiling people. It'll be a nice thing to have.

Getting Karkat to smile for the camera will be a challenge, but you're prepared to bribe him with stupid jokes and your hot body. 

Maybe if you write him a joke across your abs. Hm.

Getting John and Jade to smile should be pretty easy.

"You're not going to take a turn at playing, I take it?" Rose is asking, and you and Dave shrug in tandem.

"I will if you will," Dave tells Rose. You don't, because one-handed playing is... yeah, maybe if you learned how to use your toes instead, but your big toes might be kinda hard to aim accurately.

"Let's... wait another ten minutes," Rose says, and sighs, though she still looks amused. "Kanaya has proved surprisingly apt. I'd rather wait until she's dethroned."

"Afraid to lose to her?" Dave asks. Rose sniffs disdainfully.

"Aha. Afraid to trigger her darker urges?" you ask next, smirking.

Rose sneaks you a narrow-eyed look, and then groans. "Don't remind me. The shorter flips can be _intriguing_ , but the ones that linger get somewhat ... Hm." 

Dave nods, grimacing, and it's funny how much they look like each other in this instant, you'd put a headband on him and whoa. 

You have to stop yourself nodding along. Karkat never flipped on you for real, so you don't _really_ know, but he has certainly threatened it enough. Blech.

(Though by 'intriguing' you're pretty sure Rose meant 'sexy'. _Hmmm_.)

It occurs to you to wonder what she was like, that other Rose -- Roxy's mom. If she ever dated anyone who was like Kanaya even a little bit. You're almost jealous on Kanaya's behalf for a second; it feels a bit wrong. If Other Rose dated, you hope it was either dudes or a girl completely different from her, not a single bit like Kanaya at all.

"We just finished deciding that Dirk's Dave could keep SBaHJ," you tell Rose before you can think about it twice. "Untrodden ground, here we come."

Dave grumbles a little, but doesn't even curl up deeper in his armchair to hide from Rose's startled look. 

She considers the two of you, eyebrows slightly up, and then she goes _huh_ and she nods a little. "I see where you two are coming from."

She goes quiet, pensive; the two of you leave her to it. In the other room people are yelling about someone cheating; hooting laughter spills all over the place.

"If you think about it," Rose says, "Complacency of the Learned was heavily wound into the Condesce's invasion and all those echoes of the Game I was picking up and retreading, if only subconsciously."

"Yeah, that is totally what I think when I think about your homosocial beardly majjyks," Dave replies drolly. "No but if you wanna keep writing it, just because we decided not to--"

"Roxy let me read her copy," Rose interrupts. "I admit... I know what I've written down now, how I crafted the prose down to the smallest sentence, and it feels a bit too much like one of those fucking stable time loops. Now I _must_ write it that way, and I _know_ that I write it that way because I've _already_ written it that way. That's so infuriating! I feel like she plagiarized me before I'd even gotten to work it out of my head."

"I love how you made it into a passive-aggressive jab at you from the other timeline," you say dryly. Rose rolls her eyes at you.

"Don't invalidate my feels. I'll passive-aggressively throw away my life's work in order to show up a jerk who was myself all along if I want to, and you can't stop me."

"Whoa, whoa," Dave goes. "I'm serious, if you don't want to give it away--"

"Dave..."

She sighs, both hands primly on the edge of her seat née footrest, leaning forward a little, ankles crossed.

"You don't gotta. Just because it works for us, doesn't mean it works for you; if you feel like she stole it from you, you should steal it right back and show her."

You take sneak pictures of the two of them leaning toward each other; the chirp of the camera has them both turning identical frowns on you. You arch an eyebrow, then let the camera swing on its strap so you can take off your shades and lob them at her. "Hey, Rose, indulge me."

"We were having a very serious talk of utter seriousness here," she counters, but she puts them on.

Jesus, Rose Strider. Terrifying. Also pretty silly.

"Okay, good, now talk away."

Dave groans loudly and leans hard on his elbows. "You've ruined it, bro. You goddamn mood ruiner."

Rose leans onto her elbows, deliberately mirroring him. Click, click, click. You check the results in the viewer and crack her a smile. "Perfect. You're my favorite sibling."

You slip off your armchair, crab-walk to her to show her the result, and she smiles, an open one, cheeks dimpling a little.

"Nice. Send me copies."

"Sure thing."

Dave is still grumbling and rolling his eyes, but the two of you ignore that. You stay crouched next to her footstool as she flips through the handful of pictures you've taken, the camera still tethered to your only wrist.

"I do admit there is a degree of irrational resentment here," she says as she considers the Mutie-in-your-boxers picture like it's high art that needs interpreted. "But I also believe that the path the two of you decided on is healthier. Will be healthier, in the long run. There's no salvaging it now, so there's no use clinging to my ownership of this story while keeping on being frustrated that I got cheated of all the months and years of travail to polish it into what it should be. It's not... It's going nowhere. I'll end up hating it and hating myself whether I try to go my own way -- but not far enough to _be_ a different story -- or recreate it from memory." A short sigh. "Or I could copy straight off Roxy's book, even. It would feel about the same."

She lets your camera go, and you lower your wrist and sit on the carpet, legs crossed. She looks down at you.

Then she looks up at Dave, and she smiles. "It'll be nice to write other stories."

Dave sighs, and then nods his acceptance. "Okay, if you're sure."

"I'm sure."

"Good." A pause. He looks at you. "We're sure too."

It feels like a strange moment, like something holding its breath -- like there should be a ding of echeladder or something ridiculous like that. Maybe gentle music ticking away in the background. Harp and bells.

"Yeah," you say, throat a little tight, voice a little quiet.

Then you get up and hold out your hand for her. She takes it without really thinking, and you tug her up onto her feet.

And then you push her onto Dave's lap, and follow, perching on the padded arm where he's still got a leg draped, and you take the best selfie of all time. Of _all_ time.

You end up shoved onto the carpet and sat on as Dave messes with your hair in an epic fashion, but it was totally worth it.

Rose circles the two of you like a paparazzi and makes filthy comments ("Now flash a little thigh. Good, good, towards the camera, Byrd. Excellent, ladies. The camera loves you.") until Jane and Terezi peek out to see what's up and laugh at you and drag you in to play some goddamn Mario Kart.

One-handed and all you still play a better game than Karkat.

Not much better than anyone else -- even Jane destroys you, and you didn't have her pegged for a gamer, and...

"Children?" one of the Dads says from the double doors behind you. 

Beside you John and Jane and Karkat are flinching, twisting around in their seats; you dodge around Jane's suddenly slowing-down car and you...

His voice is so cautiously bland.

"Yeah, um," Lalonde Senior says. You hit pause with your thumb and drop the controller, and Bro is here too, behind the two of them; he's carrying a laptop, and he has such a weird look on his face that you can't even fucking start to read it even a little bit. 

"What's wrong?" ask at least three of you at once. Gamzee is already on his feet, and so are Terezi and Dirk, hands open like they're about to start pulling pointy shit from their sylladexes.

"Peace, it's -- nothing urgent," the Dad says. You start trying to get up, but John bumps into you and you land right back on your ass. "John -- Jane, please, it is not urgent, merely..."

"Completely freaky-weird?" Lalonde says. "But perhaps not _bad_. But _hella_ freaky-weird."

She looks around the room, pauses on Dirk, on Roxy. She moves inside between the couches and the cushions and the abandoned wrappers, puts a hand on Roxy's shoulder, one on Dirk's. She looks at them, like there's a thousand words in her mouth and she knows how to say none of them.

You look at Bro.

He says nothing and looks at no one, he just makes his way to the TV, grunts a question -- "Yeah, sure, unplug away--" and then the laptop is plugged in and... yeah, okay, it's his front page, a Pesterchum window open, some asshole in dark red...

\-- giftofGab [GG] started pestering gailyTerminating [GT] --

GG: so i was wondering   
GG: like seriously this is a deep and srs dilemma that i considered for ages before acting on it like a totally thoughtful and plan happy dude  
GG: at least a whole thirty two seconds and some change  
GG: what the fuck are you doing on my chumproll  
GG: if you dont mind enlightening me  
GT: Oh good fucking Lord.  
GG: cause ive had some determined fans in my time but ones hackery enough to root out my private chumhandle and put themselves on my chumplist are a bit above and beyond  
GG: i would have been happy with your panties honey  
GT: My name is Burt Strider.  
GT: If you call me anything but Bro you won't call me anything else, ever again.  
GT: On a related note, you really don't want my panties.  
GG: what do you know you dont know me you dont know my life fuck the panties police  
GT: So, Dave.  
GG: yeah ahem strider cough cough ??  
GT: What's your name?  
GG: are we really playing that game with the last name you popped out on me  
GG: i mean for serious that is the game we are playing youre gonna pretend you dont know who the fuck i am  
GG: *after* you just used my fucking name ???  
GT: Did I?  
GG: ...  
GT: Strider. Hey.   
GT: You're idling. Striders don't motherfucking idle. Screw your courage to the sticking place and put your fingers back on the keyboard.   
GT: What's your name?  
GG: dale  
GT: You sure about that?  
GG: no  
GG: the fuck is going on


	20. Days 30-31

"Okay, so if everyone is done running around like headless chickens, the grand court of Strider is now in session."

The lot of you have taken over one of the smaller lounges -- it only seats ten, and with only you, Bro, Dave, Dirk, and Terezi, you've got space to stretch your egos.

The laptop open on the coffee table with the dark red text window feels like fifteen people's worth of presence, though, even if other, _other_ Dave -- Dirk's bro, shit -- is currently on idle.

Dirk is glowering darkly at Bro. You guess you and Dave flailed around a bit too but he was the one who had to leave the room, a few hours back. You clear your throat before the silent resentment can escalate to palpable levels. "Terezi a Strider now?"

"Did you forget I was bestowed the name by proving myself in battle?" Terezi says with a little grin, and then shrugs. She's sitting with Dave on a couch; she swings her leg a little. "No, I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure why myself, though it's not like I mind."

Bro crosses his arms, reclines lazily against the back of the other couch. (He's sitting on the arm of the couch, not the couch proper. You're surprised he's not propping up a wall, to be honest, but maybe he wanted to let Dirk experience the joy and terrible responsibility of wall-bearing badassitude on his own or something.)

"Easy. You're living with us, ergo I'm your designated responsible adult, ergo Strider. Don't question it."

"I will do my utmost not to," Terezi replies very seriously. You and Dave snort under your breaths. ".. My utmost about uppity questioning of authority isn't actually very good, though, I feel you should know."

"Yeah, 's a feel I had about you." Bro sighs, and you refrain from squirming, because for a second he doesn't look casual and bored, he looks... maybe actually concerned. Like this isn't yet another joke to roll with. "Just figured if we're gonna bring another adult dude into your space that you deserve a heads up."

Another adult dude.

Yeah.

That's the thing, isn't it.

You remember Rose's hand on your wrist, squeezing so hard you thought vaguely about joking about not having a spare if she popped it off.

You couldn't think about it in depth. Because you...

Because this guy.

This guy.

"Is that," Jane had said, hesitant, as the rest of the room stared like dumbasses. "Is that Dirk's brother?"

You gaze at the laptop window, now. Dale-Dave had to step away for a bit to take care of business like canceling apparently a half-dozen interviews and promo stuff in order to hop into a plane and race after the lot of you. It's weird to think that the stupid movies Dirk made the lot of you watch the other day are actual things that are actually happening at this very moment. People are already buying _tickets_.

It's weirder to think that your SbaHJ comic site is gone. You'd lost the backups some time back -- USB key ruined by a pirate -- but...

Yeah, Dave went to check and the url is now a movie promo site. Okay. Whatever.

"I can't believe we basically brought this guy back to life," you say, and look at Dave, to see if he...

Dave makes a vague noise of agreement, presses his mouth together in a line he wants neutral. It's closer to 'no freakout here, no sirree'.

"I still don't..." He trails off, tries again. "I mean, I sort of do, but--"

"This universe is a mix of the alpha and beta sessions' versions of Earth, right?" Dirk says, clipped. "Crockercorp tech and lusii, both Bec and Gcat, Guy Fiery isn't doing politics, no fish trolls or signs that there ever were any." A pause. "Beta guardians."

But no alpha guardians. Apart from Jane's dad somehow.

OnlyPhil Crocker says John Crocker's urn is on his mantel. John his father, who died the day Jane and John -- Egbert, your own -- were born, or crash-landed, either-or. You suppose Jade English will turn out to _still_ be buried on Hellmurder Island or something.

It kind of sucks for Jake, that he doesn't get his grandma back. Grandma Jade sounded badass as fuck. At the same time... Nannasprite, yeah, would have been cool to get her back, but she started the Game already dead, you don't see a way that she could have come out alive. You suppose it's the same thing here. You're in a universe where they _have_ existed, but their time has still ended already by now.

"Alpha Dave and Rose should have been around all along," Dirk adds. "They don't die in the other timeline for another six years. But when there was no trace of them in this universe Roxy and I just assumed..."

He shrugs, scowls, tightens the cross of his arms. It's screaming 'I'm distant and badass' but... Yeah, you look away.

"Assumed the game had fucked you guys over?" Bro says, neutral.

"...Mm. Maybe something about relocating us from our previous timelines. We didn't have guardians around back then, it assumed they were not essential features of our lives. Who knows."

Turns out it was just that you and Dave and Rose were camping on their livelihoods. Okay then. Good. Yeah. Cool.

Shit, if you hadn't decided to let go of _Complacency of the Learned_ and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, they'd still be... What, stuck in limbo? They don't remember not existing until this afternoon. From their point of view and the rest of the universe's they've been here all along.

"I thought we were out of this fucking game!" Dave blurts out, and rakes a hand through his hair. It's nothing John and Karkat and Jade haven't yelled or growled since the news fell, mind. "Are we in the space between sBurb and sBurb Two, Electric Boogaloo or something? Just waiting for it to drop? Fuck."

"Sollux says no," Terezi says, and takes Dave's hand and squeezes.

"Sollux doesn't know everything!"

"Don't tell him that, he will be very surprised," Terezi confides, gentle. Dave snorts halfheartedly and leans on her shoulder a bit.

She looks pretty sad, but it's more melancholy than about to cry, which would be kind of terrifying, to be honest. Dead _during_ the game shouldn't be a deal breaker -- just look at Bro and Mom and Dad Egbert -- but the thing is, the trolls aren't from your session. They're extra data that piggybacked onto the human party's win (same as you, to be honest; you weren't supposed to come out, John and Jade just insisted.) If they'd been meant to be considered winning players too, this planet would now probably have Alternia mixed in with alpha and beta Earths and they wouldn't have to fucking hide like criminals.

It would be a total clusterfuck, you think, and no way to mesh the two planets without someone noticing something ain't right, but.

The guardians didn't come through the last door, anyway, they were rebooted, remade -- that's why they sometimes remember shit from this life the new universe insists they should have had all along, and none of the players do.

You lower your shades onto your face to check the chat room all the players are idling in. Sollux is on away but Aradia is prattling about with ghoulish interest at this sudden Time fuckery.

how sure is sollux really, you type, just because you want to reassure Dave and not because it hasn't been going around in your head for the last two hours either. (Is it over? It has to be over. You were just getting used to it.)

Karkat is the one who pings you back.

CG: VERY FUCKING SURE. HE SAYS WE SHOULD HAVE GUESSED WHEN WE COULD STILL CODE AND COMPILE ~ATH AND IT JUST WOULDN'T PRODUCE ANY NOTICEABLE RESULTS.  
CG: BITS OF THE CODE STILL RUN, THERE'S JUST NOTHING MUCH LEFT FOR THEM TO ACT UPON, SO TO SAY.  
GG: I don't know, that pirate malarkey felt quite a bit like a sidequest to me!  
EB: yeah, but it didn't get us any points. do we even still have echeladders?   
AA: im not aware of any!  
AA: cant wait to see if any other quest pops up here   
AA: or maybe exploring the frog temple counted  
EB: i don't think that counts, i mean, if the pirate thing was a quest, what even did we win?

You think of your sword, unbroken in your sylladex, your bladekind (not halfbladekind) specibus.

TG: oh  
GG: Oh?   
EB: pff. playing it mysterious, bro?  
TG: nah nothing  
TG: brain fart  
TG: :)  
AA: hahahahaha  
AA: well personally i won a kiss from a fair gentleman so im ready to call it a quest

Yeah, you bet Aradia is the one who's going to know you did get something.

If the quest thing was real. If the reward was real. If it's not all just wishful thinking -- how do you even tell?

You wonder if you still have echeladders, and just don't get to be aware of them anymore... Eh, weirder shit has happened.

"We'll figure out the sBurb stuff for good when we get to the island," Bro promises grimly. "In the meantime this dude is still going to get there as fast as a Lalonde-chartered plane can haul ass, which I assume is plenty fast if adult Rose is half as scary as our little Rosie."

Dirk snorts quietly. You make a doubtful moue. "I'd kinda assume she only had more time to hone her craft. Her terrifying eldritch craft of skullfucking people into doing her bidding. Jesus, this is gonna be intense."

Well, if Roxy unwraps from around her long enough to let any of you guys interact with the broad. You're pretty sure she's _still_ crying. And laughing. And being generally cry-happy and prone to random bone-breaking hugs. So much unbridled emotion, and she's not even letting it out in order to fuck with people, you don't get how she can be related to you.

"Their greatest life's work wasn't their careers, it was a years-long guerilla war against the Condesce," Dirk says somberly. "It wouldn't have started for another two years -- they won't remember it--"

"They _were_ quite surprised when Crockercorp turned out not to have a finger in every pie already!" Terezi says.

Dirk cuts her a look you can't read. Sharp and maybe a bit impatient. Terezi arches an eyebrow, but you know she knows he's been on edge ever since the big reveal.

"What I _meant_ was. Did anyone think to tell them the trolls we currently have around are not enemies? Because the only one they'll have heard of will be her Imperious Condescension. Evil alien overlord fated to slay them and drown the Earth? Wouldn't be surprised if they're kind of touchy at first."

You blink. "Oh, huh."

"I'll do it," Bro says. "Guardian to guardian. Gotta make sure they don't take a swing at our 'Rezi before that shit is sorted out. That works?"

Dirk nods reluctantly, but you weren't expecting him to say he'd do it. He still hasn't been able to bring himself to participate in any group chat Dale-Dave was also in.

He does lurk on invisible like a stalker, though, you're pretty sure.

"Okay, next item. You gonna want to live with him?"

The lot of you Striders-by-birth blink dumbly at Bro. Dirk opens his mouth, hesitates.

"Shit, ask me to solve pi next time. I don't even know him. What if we don't get along?" ( _Yes_ , his body screams, yes, yes, _please_ , but then he looks at the lot of you and flounders. Awgh.)

"Okay, he can be the jet-setting uncle until we figure it out." Bro shrugs. "Wonder how our histories got -- Oh, huh. He's my estranged twin brother that our mom took in the divorce. Cool. I hate getting my background knowledge updated, it's fucking annoying. Okay, so you're now my nephew, only I've got guardianship."

Dirk twitches it off like an annoying but inconsequential fly. "Whatever. I bet you're supposed to be the only father I ever knew, so that wouldn't change much."

"Eh, apparently I got you when you were like four. Some kind of drug scandal, absent mom, I was already dealing with the twins so I obviously knew how to keep a toddler alive, and I still had a clean job. But if he wants to reconnect now that he's made it with his dream job I wouldn't cockblock."

They stare at each other for a few seconds, and then Dirk slowly -- very slowly -- relaxes. Bro quirks an almost invisible smile.

"Our family history gets more and more like a soap opera with each passing day," you tell Terezi with wide-eyed earnestness.

She snickers back at you. "The TV must have misled me on your mammalian tangle-clades, because this doesn't even sound strange to me. Or any stranger than it already was, at any rate."

"You calling our loving family strange, girl?" Bro says, mouth pursed sternly.

Terezi considers it, pretend-serious, fearless, and then nods. "Completely bizarre!"

"Okay, good," Bro says, and they both chuckle. Dave groans. Bwahaha. Poor dude, having his girlfriend get along with his Bro-dad figure.

... You're so fucking glad Karkat is still at the wary-of-the-big-bad-adult stage and will at any rate never be the kind to display a gorgeously fucked up sense of humor to ping Bro in the diseased lump he calls a funny gland. Bro is much more likely to try to make Karkat squirm than to come up with private jokes.

And then the chatroom pings. The main one, with the adults and everyone.

GG: okay im back  
GG: you guys alive over there or

You stare at the laptop, briefly unsettled anew. You just... Every time he speaks it's the same thought. Another Dave? Is the universe _kidding_?

A Dave who's got even more to measure up to, an adult who fought the Condesce like a badass and also was a celebrity with several acclaimed movies under his belt -- shit, if you hadn't just decided that this wasn't a thing you wanted anymore... Yeah, it still twinges a bit, but...

... A Dave who sounds confused as fuck and completely lost, if you want to be honest. A Dave whose great war went poof under his nose and he's not even gonna remember how he died, what he was made of in the end; in his personal timeline it hasn't happened yet, and now it never will.

You lean in, slide the keyboard to you before Bro can get it. Dave gives you a weird look; you ignore him pointedly.

GG: where the fuck are you guys anyway i cant track you  
TG: swag as fuck parlor on swag as fuck crockeryacht in the middle-left of the pacific   
TG: or was it middle-right by now i forget  
TG: hi other dave this is other *other* dave long story  
TG: lemme drag original flavor dave on the line well chat  
GG: original  
GG: flavor  
GG: dave  
TG: doomed timelines man what can you do  
GG: you dont sound very doomed bro  
TG: i was a crow for a while  
TG: also a katana as long as your moms dick  
GG: my moms dick was p hefty you sure of your aspersions there  
TG: haha  
TG: btw you cant appreciate the brilliance of it yet but my names byrd  
GG: same way my names dale?

For a second you blink, and then you remember that oh, _right_ , before the game, Bro's ID used to read Dirk Burt instead of Burt Dirk. You suppose that, same as the fucking SbaHJ-Complacency thing, the Game didn't want two Dirks around, and the player version had dibs. (You also suppose it wanted to make sure at least one of them was gonna make it big as a gay porn star, because _damn_.)

TG: yeah kinda but no i chose that one  
TG: maybe cause i came through on my own i wasnt reformatted like you  
TG: but anyway ive got photos of dirk getting creamed at mario kart you want??  
GG: ...  
GG: shit yeah hand over the goods  
GG: whats the little bastard even look like fuck  
GG: i mean strider means handsome devil ofc but specifics would be nice

You swing your little camera up from your wrist into your hand and go for the USB cable, pretend you don't notice Dave giving the screen wary little glances and trying to sidle closer without looking like he's doing that.

GG: oh hey hello baby  
GG: hello dirk  
GG: brb burst water pipe bukkake  
TG: while im at it want the rest of the folder  
TG: its got like little rose and roxy and big roxy and their weirdo cat and also me and dave and rose being hot and sexy models of incestuous ot3  
GG: shit son thats a feast   
GG: how much do i owe ya  
TG: first hit is free  
TG: btw bro got us up to speed on the new backstories   
TG: for the record if you actually did hard drugs i will be disappoint  
GG: dude marijuana gives me the runs what do you think  
TG: well i think i dont know you bro and just because its not my thing and were iterations of the same dude im still hella not you  
GG: fair  
GG: some asshole forgot their baggie at my place after a party  
GG: i guess if cps has to get involved it looks worse huh   
GG: welp my poor rep   
GG: i wouldnt have even done that much if i had a fucking toddler at home  
GG: ... can you tell dirk that plz

Heh.

TG: yeah sure thing

Dirk discovers a ceiling leak of his own that he absolutely must fix out of the room. Whoops. The lot of you somehow manage to duck your heads or find something to admire elsewhere to let him exit without having to have his shameful plumbing issues unveiled.

You only remember that the folder you just sent Dale contains pictures of trolls -- Kanaya and Rose, laughing like hyenas, and Karkat glaring his funny little trying-not-to-smile glare -- when the chat room erupts in swearing. Whoops.

Oh well. There's time enough until he and Rose Bis catch up to talk them out of murdering your boyfriend's whole species.

You're sure Rose Bis will be all over it the second you mention the pants tentacle, anyway.

\--

\-- **Day thirty-one** \--

You think you'll miss the ship and all its ridiculous grandiosity and your own shitty-but-private room, but you also think that now you know for sure there's only at worst three or four hours to wait you're about ready to jump in the water and swim there, the ship seems to move _that_ slowly.

Anyway it's breakfast and you are breaking fast, making lofty faces at John as he toils away with the Dad that's actually his uncle in the kitchen, making comments about the help. Rose and Kanaya are sitting at your (soon, my precious) right hand, murmuring sleepily to each other. On the other side of the dinner table is the breakfast show.

Terezi is sitting between her men, and playing footsie with both of them. You can tell when it's Dave's turn because his eyebrows go extra-linear and he takes entirely coincidental pauses from drinking his apple juice.

You can tell when it's Gamzee because the table jumps with every kick.

"--Fuckin' hell, my juice!" you and Dave accidentally stereo at a particularly vigorous kick. You sponge up a puddle of delicious AJ from the table with an embroidered napkin; Dave glares to his left (your right), even lowering his shades for added annoyedness.

"K, Teezee, move your pointy butt, I'mma sit in the middle," he says, and starts hauling himself up.

You try not to snicker audibly at the face all the trolls in the room make.

"That's the _grossest_ thing you have ever said to me," Terezi says, almost admiring.

Gamzee nods his head like a bobblehead in slow motion. "Gotta get my agree on with the swill-bitch, that shit is straight-up full-on nasty."

Standing, Dave stares at the both of them. You pour yourself another glass as you watch, entertained.

"You think I want to do it? No I don't, but I will if you make me, okay? I'm only up for this quadrant shit as long as it doesn't fuck with my life, and fucking with my AJ is straight up _it_."

"You should mediate in bed, bro," you advise innocently.

You did not hear Karkat come in, the ninja-footed adorajerk; you know he's here when he slaps the back of your head. "Don't be offensive so early in the morning, my rage gland will get clogged on sleep hormones."

Then he leans in to kiss your temple hello, so you forgive him.

He pulls up the chair on your left, leans forward to say hello to Kanaya and Rose across you, and then the both of you look at Dave, who is still standing on the other side of the table with his mouth open, and looks like he has forgotten to sit back down.

"... Whatcha doin', twinnypoo? If someone told you it'd make you grow taller they lied."

" _Did Karkat just kiss you._ Did -- did you just kiss Byrd?!"

You blink. Karkat blinks.

Then he growls. "What, I can't kiss my matesprit hello now? That's rich, coming from Mister Let's Put The Public Back In Public Displays of Affection! Or drag it, more appropriately!"

Dave is still spluttering. "What? No, seriously, _what_?"

You do the Good Boyfriend thing and fetch things down the table for Karkat to slather on his toast, and reflect on how glorious it is that Dave still didn't know.

"Your _what_? His what?"

"It's the quadrant where you mack nicely and don't _have_ to talk shit afterwards," you inform Dave generously. Granted, you and Karkat often still talk shit afterwards anyways, but. You can also finger-comb each other's hair, or play connect-the-scars. Or do nothing and just cuddle.

Dave remembers to close his mouth. Not for very long, and you'd pretend you mind but... yeah, still the best fucking show.

"You guys are _dating_?"

"Yes," Rose says dryly. You confirm with a casual nod, eyes drifting unconcernedly to some painting on the wall behind Terezi, who has a fist in her mouth to keep her muffled shrieks from escaping. Gamzee is making a vaguely disgusted but-he'll-live-with-it-for-Karkat's-sake face. Rose rolls her eyes. "They're very cute, and now, Karkat, can you stop monopolizing the butter?"

Karkat takes the time to butter another piece of toast before he graciously slides the butter dish back at you. You slide it on to Kanaya.

Dave scans the table slowly, face after face, and then John's face when he comes back with another plate of pancakes.

"Did you rope them into this, Egbert?"

John puts the plate down. Karkat disappears two pancakes. "Hm? What?"

"Vantas and my paradox twin," Dave replies, working so hard to sound neutral it ends up even more peeved than allowing some expression through would have. "Kissing each other on the face, I mean, Karkat is the most humorless fucker I've ever met but talking him into playing along with a joke, that'd seriously be the crown of your career, so--"

John's face lights up, and he grins. "Oh _wow_ , you still didn't know? He didn't know! Karkat, he didn't know and you let it slip when I wasn't here to see his face, that's mean, bro."

"Who the hell gives a jolly folkdance who knows," Karkat grumps into his pancake, and then sneaks you a look and hunches over a little, mumbles at you. "I forgot he didn't know. I mean. Sorry."

You shrug one shoulder, crook him a tiny smile. "Dude, this is a great reveal, I'm cool with it."

You could have orchestrated something more dramatic, but... Eh, you're not the one who's all obsessed about being a prankmaster. This is schadenfreude without any effort on your part, which is pretty much ideal.

"Did _everyone_ know before me?"

"Pretty much, yes," Kanaya says with an apologetic look.

"They were hardly discreet," Dad Crocker adds, calling out from the kitchen, and you. Um. Okay this is backfiring a _tiny_ little bit.

"Yeah!" Mom Lalonde adds, also from the kitchen _when did she get there so unfair_. "The Dads had a dadly convo about how to handle teenage sons becoming sexually active and everything."

You start seriously contemplating the possibility of smothering to death in pancake. Seems like it would be a comforting death. A fluffy and delicious last embrace. Oh Jesus.

"Anyway, Phil," she says, barely quieter, "I gotta borrow you, we're approaching some reefs and I don't know if Jade's piloting skills..."

Crockpops calls John back to supervise whatever it is he left on in the kitchen, and he and Mom Lalonde thankfully depart. You clear your throat.

Not mortified at all. Quick, let's pass the buck.

"Yeah, so, hey, by the way, Dave, me and Karkat are a thing. Just so you know."

"Thanks for telling me," Dave answers, just as deadpan. "Also for the sudden team-switching. Is it part of your evil twin schtick, you trying out the depraved bisexual trope or--"

You check that John has left the room, and then you lean over the table and hiss, clear enough for like everyone else who might bring it back to him, " _Don't_ make me remind you about the derp sandwich fantasy, yeah, _you know the one_."

Dave splutters. You sit back down, vindicated.

"Dude, I was thirteen, I had fantasies about _turnips_ \--"

"Also don't tell me your girlfriend has no troll dick to handle, I'll be hella fucking sad for you and your vanilla life."

... Okay, and now he's turning red. Pfffffffff. Here is someone whose horizons would have benefited from the school of Sprite-Enforced Celibacy.

Okay so you got kinda obsessed with trying to find a fantasy that still did it for you back in the day. Maybe.

"Oh, do you know how human boy mating parts handle then?" Terezi asks Karkat casually across the table. "Great, my auricular sponge clots are wide open for tips of all kinds. I asked Kanaya but apparently female humans have different parts."

... Is... is it Christmas...? In June? "Wait, you guys _still_ haven't done it?" you ask Dave, who turns redder and glares at you so hard you almost feel a burn through his shades.

Your own shades are in your hair. You smirk back at him, slow and smug.

Then Karkat's elbow finds your ribs. Oof. "Yeah, we still haven't had penetrative sex either--"

" _Hah_ ," Dave hisses. You pout. Okay, so the race is still on. You're still leading, so whatever.

"--but sure, I've handled that shit. I'm basically a champion human tool handler at this point. We can have the talk anytime you want."

You look at Karkat looking at Terezi and yeah, you know they have a history, and he's a little awkward about the offer -- mostly because it's sincere, you think, and he's like you, he's weird about that. But that's all it is. The little smile on his face is easy, not nervous. He's so cute, you barely mind that he's talking about your dick like it's a weird alien gizmo he found on the floor.

The way she grins back is so fond you want to go d'aww and lock them together in gossipchumpage for all eternity, but that might be too incestuous as quadrant grids go. Oh well.

"So romantic," Rose muses, eyes gleaming. You make a _humph_ face at her. Kanaya is smiling into her coffee cup.

"Yeah, fuckin' sweet," Dave grumbles, still red to his ears. "Team planning for my devirginizing. Awesome."

Gamzee throws him an actual side glare. "What, you can't get off your glutes and plan it your own bad self. Don't got my understanding on how any of you space monkeys can be this bucket-shy and still with the miracle of life."

"I told you why already," you say, frowning a little, because, yeah, it was pretty traumatizing.

"And it makes still no sense in my pan, bro." A boneless shrug. "But anywhichway, heart of my spades bro..."

Both Dave and Terezi throw him a wary look. Karkat has an eyebrow up, like he's keeping watch but so far nothing is requiring his expert face-fondling skills.

"...Since you can't get your hurry the fuck on up, and you want first in her nook so strong you got all to blocking everyfuckingthing, mind if she plows my nook in the meantime? Because shit, son."

" _Gamzee_ ," Terezi shriek-gasps, like she wants to snarl and to laugh all at once. Wow, shit, they haven't done it either? You kinda thought they would have, they're always... Um.

Well, there are _other_ ways. Ways you are getting a bit more knowledgeable about pretty much daily.

But wow. Your illusions, shattered. You guess that Ming-looking vase only _coincidentally_ looked like someone had used it as a bucket, then.

Anyway contrary to you and Karkat it's visibly not because they're not ready to make that step. Wowza.

" _Why_ ," Dave says. He looks about to have a heart attack, or maybe to go on a table-flipping rampage. You pick up your juice just in case. "Why are you bringing that up at breakfast. Why."

Gamzee blinks slowly. "Why not? Even that featherbeast motherfucker got his ass in gear--"

"Gamzee, that's a private topic," Karkat says, but he sounds pretty entertained, that jerk. Cute jerk. "Joking around is one thing but I for one don't really want to know that many details about you guys' sex arrangements."

" _Thank_ you."

Karkat turns to Dave. "Though if you really did ask Terezi to wait on you -- huh, Terezi, I'm surprised, you know how bad that could mess with your whole grid -- then you've also asked a lot of Gamzee, so he probably does deserve a gesture of good faith back--"

"And we're back to Dave mediating in bed," you say with a barely smothered snicker.

Karkat slaps the back of your head without breaking stride. "And I think this is as close as I ever want to get to discussing my moirail's nook, so hey, how long until we get there?"

"I'll go and ask," Dave says, and pushes away from the table. He steals a piece of toast on the way and stomps out. Umm.

Kanaya applies her elbow to your ribs with grace and discretion and also some truly _magical_ sharp-ended bones. You yelp. She leans in, mutters from the corner of her mouth. "This _was_ all very funny, but also a bit mean to Dave."

... Yeah, kind of a bit. You lift your hand in surrender, and climb to your feet. "Okay, okay. Karkat, I'll catch you later, yeah?"

He arches an eyebrow at you as your hand lands briefly on his shoulder, but his face is now stuck in a coffee mug John just brought him and you're pretty sure it's not going to come back out until the thing is half-drained. You pick up your dishes and flashstep to the kitchen to dump them and then jog up after your clonebro.

He's already a level and a half up. Urgh. "Hey, Dave -- goddamn, son, your calves are toned enough, slow down," you call up the stairwell.

"Whaddya want," he grumbles, but he does slow down. You catch up, breathing only a little hard, and you pray Bro won't catch you or else you're good for some serious endurance training.

"... Sorry? I guess we ragged on you a bit much there."

He stares at you for a few seconds and then he sighs. "You're just being nice because you know it freaks me out, right?"

That's just as good as 'yeah, apology accepted and also you're wrong I wasn't sulking like a little bitch over getting ribbed anyways'. You shrug. "Yep, pretty much."

The two of you resume climbing.

"So... When you told Gamzee you were macking on Karkat that one time you were actually telling the truth. Shit, man, that's months ago, gotta do something for the anniversary."

"Three weeks, technically, but we weren't dating yet, just hooking up." A lick of honesty prompts you to add, "Also the big junk-touching event happened literally two days ago. You're probably still in the lead."

Dave's back straightens a little. "Hah."

"Don't get too cocky now, it took you how long to go from first chaste kiss to shaking hands with her happy tentacle? And it sounds like she hasn't returned the favor yet?"

"Dude, have you seen her _claws_."

Hah. _Your_ boyfriend sands them down for you. "At this rate I'll be unicorn-free five or six years before you."

Dave kicks back without looking; you dodge.

"God, don't remind me, her pocket surprise traumatized me."

You arch the fuck out of your left eyebrow. " _Did_ it, now."

Haha, even his _neck_ is red. He ducks his head, mumbles. "... Okay maybe not."

Pff, that tool. He's so easy. "Dude, you realize we still gotta have about the same kinks so far, yeah?"

Dave grunts and doesn't answer, but his ears are still pretty red. Win.

You're caught by surprise when he gets to the third level landing and veers to the lounge instead of the pilot's room.

He props himself up against a divan; you stand in the doorway, eyebrows up, waiting patiently. You can see him darting glances at your uncovered face -- your shades are still holding up your bangs, it's not like you want to do without entirely and they're a sweet fashion accessory, okay.

"Urgh, nothing. I wish some kind of diagram of troll parts would just, like, materialize out of thin air, and no one would have to talk about it. Oh, you're thinking of diddling a troll? Here, have a pamphlet. Because you might be mister sharing is caring nowadays but I'mma kick you down every single stair this ship has if you try to share _that_. Like, in detail."

Pff. Wow, would that piss Karkat off, even though you bet right now he's giving Terezi the 'how to wank a human dick' spiel, illustrated.

... You don't want to talk about his junk in particular, anyway, because the way it swallowed your fingers all warm and snug, that is _yours_.

"Where's the porn hub when we need it," you say, commiserating.

Dave relaxes a little; probably caught your subliminal 'nope, not going there' signals. "Man, I haven't seen it in forever, not a clue."

"And do you think we could subtly drop it near one of the trolls and they'd take the hint and do what a good Samaritan would and fill it with xeno porn that no one would have to acknowledge afterwards. Ever."

A small pink rectangle arches through the air over your shoulder and lands on Dave's knee, rebounds on the divan. Clatter. Stop.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. It's the porn hub netbook.

"Do I want to turn around," you ask Dave, already knowing what he'll tell you.

"No you fucking do not," he says, unsurprisingly.

"You same-faced motherfuckers make all kinds of funny jokes," Gamzee says, mellow and insincere. You scrunch your eyes closed. He's standing by your shoulder, of fucking course.

" _Why_."

"Bro, I'm entirely on board with you heretic-eyed fuckers learning how best to bring proper service at my quadrantmates. Ain't hardly no trouble at all, and hurry the fuck up already."

You hear him drag his feet down the corridor, the way you did _not_ hear him drag them to here. Dave is staring back into your eyes with the same shuddering wince.

" _Forever unclean_ ," you say as he sidles off the couch like the porn hub is now a live snake.

"Hey, little bro!" John calls out happily from the pilot's room, and Gamzee calls back, almost cheerful, "Heya, my pocket-sized older motherfucker." John protests the moniker. You and Dave grimace at each other.

How many faces does the guy _have_. You think maybe only two, actually, they just flip so fucking fast. Creep. You guess Karkat must like them deeply fucked up.

What that would say about you, you decide to ignore entirely.

"Uuuurgh," Dave groans, with feeling, "and I still have to go into that room. I mean it's probably why John's there now but I fucking said I would."

You pat his shoulder sympathetically. "Yeah, that's rough for you," you say, and abscond the fuck off this level of the ship entirely.

On the way down you see just about everyone who wasn't crammed into the pilot's room arrayed on the sun deck, packed at the prow.

There are rocks breaking the water here and there, bare at first and then streaked white with seagull shit, and you almost don't get what they're staring at until Terezi fucking Pyrope wipes her eyes and a fucking _white dolphin with wings_ breaches the water to ride the waves.

In the sky, so far it'd get dwarfed by your pinky if you put it in the middle, there's a dragon.

You stand at Kanaya's shoulder and watch between her horns and Jane's wind-tousled head as a fleck slowly grows on the horizon.

"I can't believe we actually got here. Jesus Francesco Christ."

"Jinx," Terezi and Jane say together, and get you on both hipbones. "We're not actually there yet!" Jane berates without taking her eyes off the dolphin, now dancing it up with a buddy. Karkat rolls his eyes at you when you make injured doe eyes at him.

After that he drapes an almost entirely casual arm around your waist and tucks you against his side. Swoon, so manly. Heheh.

"Can you believe I'm going to miss this ship?" Terezi says. "All this _sunlight_ and good stiff marine breeze."

"I can't," Karkat replies cynically, and throws you a side-look. "Couldn't your older redundant triple-clone get here earlier and buy us a plane with his apparently ridiculous amount of human money?"

Nah, it was good like this. Just what the doctor ordered. (Still can't wait to step onto solid land though.) You nudge Karkat, purse your lips. "Hey, I'm delicate about Third Dave, okay."

It was a joke, and not even a great one; you didn't expect both him and Kanaya to turn their heads to stare at you, brows furrowed, trying to decide how much they should fret. Whoops.

"... I was kidding. Seeing how divergent his timeline is, he's guaranteed to be a lot less Dave than Actual Dave is. I'm cool with it."

Also there's the fact that you're not Dave.

You guess you'll always be _a_ Dave, but. Eh.

You bump your right shoulder against Karkat's, pat Kanaya's shoulder, eye the island. It's growing faster than you expected. You can see Jade's tower spires already.

Also something that pings you as either a dragon gone for a swim or a sea serpent.

"... Hey, you know what, maybe I should go and pack my shit. That way I'll be ready for when we inevitably have to strife the wildlife to get to land."

\--

When you get to your cabin, all your clothes are off the rack at the bottom of the cupboard, and Gcat is giving messy green birth right on top of them. When you start yelling she's thoughtful enough to teleport you right on top of Roxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end! thank you for following this story, whether you found it two years ago or yesterday.
> 
> i might write more ficlets and sidefics in this 'verse, but it's also likely that i won't. nothing more is planned and i have no plot left and frankly right now i am very ready to let it rest for a while. but hey, this fic wasn't planned either and it still happened, all twenty chapters of it, so who the hell knows. certainly not me.
> 
> (PS Alpha Rose's name is now Ruby and her screen name GadTranscribed, because i like inverting the initials of their handles from the kid they're guarding. Alpha Dave/Dale is GiftofGab. tried to slip her name in the chapter but. oh well.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Crash Standing [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8830372) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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